TOPICS   OF  THE  TIMES 


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BR  115  .S6  M38 
MacQueary,  Howard,  1861 
Topics  of  the  times 


TOPICS  OF  THE  TIMES 


Xoveira  Xlterature  Scciea,  1rto.  175, 


TOPICS  OF  THE  TIMES 


V^. 


^^/^-; 


BY 

Rev.  HOWARD  llACQUEARY 

AUTHOR  OF 
**THE  EVOLUTION  OF  MAN  AND  CHRISTIANITY" 


NEW  YORK 
UNITED    STATES   BOOK   COMPANY 

SUCCESSORS  TO 

JOHN  W.  LOVELL  COMPANY 

150  WORTH   ST.,  COR.  MISSION  PLACE 


Copyright,  1891, 

BY 

UNITED  STATES  BOOK  COMPANY 


TO 
PROFESSOR  ANDREW  D.  WHITE,  LL.D. 

CORNELL  UNIVERSITY,  NEW  YORK. 


My  Dear  Sir  : — Permit  me  to  express  my  sincere  appreciation  of  the 

sympathy  and  interest  you  have  shown  in  my  humble  efforts  to  Uberahze 
and  rationahze  the  thought  and  Ufe  of  the  Church  by  dedicating  to  you 
this  Httle  volume,  in  which  you  will  doubtless  find  much  that  you  will 
disapprove,  but  1  flatter  myself  that  you  will  also  find  something  in  it 
which  you  can  cordially  indorse.     I  have  the  honor  to  be, 

Very  truly  yours, 

Howard  MacQueary. 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS. 

PART  I. 
LECTURES. 

PAGB3. 

I.  The  Conflict  Between  Labor  and  Capital,  .         .        .  13 

II.  An  Exposition  of  Nationalism, 31 

III.  Truths  and  Errors  of  Henry  George's  Views,    ...  44 

IV.  The  Savages  of  Civilization, 68 

V.  Popular  Ideas  of  Poverty, 83 

VI.     Reduction  of  the  Hours  of  Labor,  .         .   •      .         •         -94 

VII.     The  Negro  in  America, loi 

VIII.     The  Bible  in  the  Public  Schools 112 

PART  II. 
SERMONS. 


I.     Our  Country  :  Its  Character  and  Destiny     (A  Thanksgiving 


II. 

III. 

IV. 

V. 

VI. 

VII. 

VIII. 

IX. 


Day  Discourse),       .... 
The  Sabbath  Question,      .... 
Criticism  of  the  Bible,  .... 
Did  the  Fish  Swallow  Jonah  ?     . 
What's  the  Use  of  Praying  ? 

What  is  the  Evidence  of  Life  After  Death? 
The  God-Filled  Man,  .         .         .         . 

Unshaken  Religious  BeUefs, 

Should  We  Have  Creeds? 

The  Real  Rights  of  Woman, 


120 
129 
139 
150 
162 

173 
185 
196 
207 
218 


PREFACE. 


There  are  two  radically  different  ideas  of  the  Church  and 
the  Pulpit.  By  many  the  Church  is  considered  a  sort  of 
"fire  escape,"  an  institution  established  for  the  purpose 
of  saving  men  from  a  distant  burning  prison.  The  clergy- 
man is  regarded  as  a  sort  of  religious  policeman,  whose 
duty  it  is  to  hold  up  before  sinners  pictures  of  hell  to  scare 
them  into  doing  their  duty.  He  must  scourge  them  into 
the  straight  and  narrow  way  with  the  thong  of  fear.  In 
other  words  the  Church  and  the  Pulpit  are  supposed  co  deal 
with  the  future  world,  not  with  this,  at  least  not  primarily 
with  this. 

Religion  is  separated,  or  at  any  rate  distinguished  from 
Morality,  and  it  is  taught  that  **a  man  maybe  a  moral 
man,  a  very  moral  man,  and  yet  go  to  hell." 

On  the  other  hand,  many  think  that  Jesus  came  to  save 
His  people  from  their  sins  (Matthew  i.  ii);  to  intellectu- 
ally, socially,  morally  and  religiously  regenerate  and  ele- 
vate men  in  this  world  ;  to  save  them  from  the  hell  of  a 
depraved  soul,  and  from  the  consequences  of  such  depravity 
here  and  hereafter  ;  to  convert  earth  into  paradise.  They, 
therefore,  hold  that  the  Church  and  the  Pulpit  have  sonie- 
thing  to  do  with  the  moral  aspect  of  every  question,  politi- 
cal, social  or  scientific  ;  that  the  best  way  to  prepare  men 
for  the  next  life  is  to  make  them  better  in  this.  They  hold 
that  Religion  and  Morality  are  twin-sisters.  Religion  is 
Morality  heightened  by  emotion  ;  morality  based  on  belief 
in  and  love  of  God  and  love  of  man.  Pure  religion  and 
undefiled  before  God  and  the  Father  is  this  :  To  visit  the 
fatherless  and  the  widows,  and  all  sufferers  in  their  afflic- 
tion and  relieve  them  if  possible,  and  keep  oneself  unspotted 
from   sin.     The   clergyman,    therefore,   should   denounce 


10  TOPICS  OF  THE  TIMES. 

political  corruption  and  industrial  slavery,  and  social  deg- 
radation, and  scientific  disbelief,  as  well  as   ''  preach  Jesus 
i  Christ  and  Him  Crucified."    Indeed,  the  man  who  preaches 
"orthodox  theories"  of  the  Atonement,  the  Incarnation, 
etc.,  etc.,  and  leaves  unpreached  the  great  moral  truths  of 
the  Decalogue   and  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  will  find 
himself  at  the  last  day  in  that  large  company  who  will  cry 
''Lord,  Lord,  have  we  not  prophesied  in  thy  name  and  in 
thy   name   done   many  wonderful  things .?  "     But  He  will 
answer:   "I   never   knew   you."     And  when  I  speak  of 
preaching  the  doctrines  of  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  I  don't 
mean  preaching  them  in  general,  apologetic  terms,  but  I 
mean  applying  them  to  the  solution  of  particular  problems, 
regardless  of  whom  they  offend,  regardless  of  the  loss  of 
popularity,  position  and  salary.     We  hear  any  amount  of 
talk  in  the  Pulpit  about  "oppression  of  the  poor  and  the 
elevation  of  the  lower  classes,"  but  the  man  who  has  rail- 
road magnates  or  coal  kings  in  his  congregation  is  decid- 
edly weary   about  denouncing  the  evils  of  monopolistic 
corporations,   trusts  and  combines  ;  but  this  is  precisely 
what  he  ought  to  do,  and  the  more  of  such  men  he  can  get 
in  his  congregation,  the  more  strongly  should  he  preach 
against  such  evils.     Of  course,  he  need  not  and  should  not 
descend  to  personal  abuse,  and  he  should  not  be  indis- 
criminating  in    his    censure,  but  he   should  be  bold  and 
honest  and  faithful,  as  a  minister  of  Christ.     Such  a  preacher 
may  expect  to  incur  odium,  as  Christ  did,  but  what  of  that  ? 
He  will  be  accused  of  desiring  to  create   "a  sensation." 
It  is  impossible  to  preach  on  living  issues  without  being 
accused    of    sensationalism.      On    the    other   hand,    if    a 
preacher   confines    himself  to  a  reiteration  of  platitudes, 
commonplaces,  he  will  be  called  a  "fogy."     Choose,  then, 
between  sensationalism  and  fogyism,  and  for  the  sake  of 
Truth,   do  not  choose  the  latter.     Of  course  the  old  men 
and  women  will   call  your  sermons   "lectures,"  and  will 
probably  stay  away  from  church,  but  thinking   men  and 
women  will  come  to  hear  you,  and  after  all  it  is  thinkers 
who  move  the  world. 

Therefore,  let  none  of  the  popular  objections  to  the 
modern  idea  of  the  Church  and  Pulpit  deter  you  from  acting 
upon  it.  "  Modern  idea,"  did  I  say  ?  Why,  it  is  as  old  as 
the  prophets  of  Israel.  Old  Samuel,  and  Isaiah,  and  Jere- 
miah,  and  Ezekiel,  and   all  their  noble  band,  boldly  de- 


PREFACE.  11 

nounced  the  political  and  social  evils  of  their  time,  and  the 
great  "  court  preachers  "  of  the  Christian  Church  did  the 
same.  What  we  must  do  is  to  revive  their  idea  of  the  func- 
tion of  the  Church  and  Pulpit,  and  follow  their  example, 
and  this  is  being  done  to  a  great  extent.  The  clergyman  is 
paying  less  attention  to  the  women  and  more  attention  to 
the  men  ;  he  is  doing  less  ''pastoral  visiting"  and  more 
"pastoral  work  ;  "  he  is  putting  aside  theological  dogmas, 
and  considering  the  problems  of  life  ;  he  is  ceasing  to  deal 
in  pious  platitudes  and  preaching  "  a  muscular  Christian- 
ity ;  "  he  is  trying  to  get  men  to  come  to  church  and  pray 
on  Sunday  ;  but  he  is  trying  more  earnestly  to  make  them 
do  iustly,  love  mercy,  and  walk  humbly  before  their  God 
and  fellowmen  during  the  week  ;  and  it  is  because  I  wish  to 
help  forward  this  good  work,  in  my  humble  way,  that  I 
have  published  this  little  volume  of  lectures  and  sermons. 
They  are  examples  of  the  sort  of  preaching  which  I  think 
our  age  needs,  but  in  offering  them  to  the  public,  I  beg 
leave  to  say  : 

They  are  intended  to  be  popular  discussions  of  the  great 
problems  considered.  They  are  by  no  means  intended  to 
be  exhaustive  or  original.  I  have  not  aimed  to  say  any- 
thing new  or  startling,  but  while  I  do  not  claim  origi- 
nality for  this  book,  I  may  say  that  I  have  made  the  ideas  of 
others  used  herein  my  own  :  they  have  not  been  swallowed 
without  being  digested.  While,  therefore,  the  materials  of 
the  book  are  derived,  they  bear  my  image  and  superscrip- 
tion, which  my  friends  will  recognize  ;  they  are  cast  in  my 
own  mental  mold.  Originality  after  all  is  a  relative  term. 
A  man  is  original  to  some  people  and  decidedly  unoriginal 
to  others.  I  am  original  to  many  people  ("chiefly  fools  !  "), 
but  to  Solomons  I  am  an  archaic  echo.  This  book  is  not 
written  for  Solomons,  and  should  one  by  mistake  happen 
to  take  it  up,  I  beg  him  to  read  no  farther  than  this  pas- 
sage. My  aim  has  been,  chiefly,  to  find  the  truth  in  other 
people's  ideas,  and  to  present  it  in  a  popular  manner  to  those 
who  have  had  less  leisure  for  reading  and  studying  than  I 
have,  and  if  I  have  done  this,  I  have  done  all  I  desired. 

Furthermore  :  The  book  is  not  "a  learned  work."  I  say 
this  because  my  short  experience  as  a  writer  convinces  me 
that  "ongmality"  and  "learning"  are  considered  indis- 
pensable prerequisites  to  authorship  by  many  critics,  even 
if  (especially  if)  the  critics  themselves  are  not  original  and 


I  2  TOPICS  OF  THE  TIMES. 

learned.  I  never  knew  what  an  ignoramus  I  was  until  I 
wrote  a  book,  and  therefore  I  humbly  admit  that  I  am  not 
learned,  and  no  production  of  mine  can  bear  the  desirable 
stamp  of  erudition  ;  but  as  learning  no  less  than  originality 
is  relative,  as  a  man  may  be  very  "deep"  to  shallow 
minds  and  very  learned  to  the  uneducated,  perhaps  I  may 
get  a  hearing  and  a  reading,  since  the  Solomons  are  de- 
cidedly in  the  minority  in  these  degenerate  days.  At  any 
rate,  some  of  my  friends  who  heard  these  lectures  and  ser- 
mons were  good  enough  to  assure  me  that  they  were  wor- 
thy of  publication,  and  therefore  I  venture  to  offer  them  to 
the  public.  They  have,  of  course,  been  thoroughly  re- 
vised, much  of  the  original  matter  being  omitted  and  some 
new  matter  added 

Howard  MacQueary. 


TOPICS  OF  THE  TIMES. 


THE  CONFLICT  BETWEEN  LABOR  AND  CAPITAL. 

The  conflict  between  labor  and  capital  is  at  least  three 
thousand  years  old.  In  an  ancient  document  we  have  an 
account  of  such  a  conflict  which  reads  like  a  socialistic 
novel  of  the  present  day.  The  parties  concerned  were  a 
wealthy  country  gentleman  who  owned  large  tracts  of  land 
and  large  flocks  of  sheep  and  herds  of  cattle,  and  a  noble 
outlaw,  who,  at  the  head  of  a  body  of  bandits,  Hved  in  the 
caves  of  the  mountains  on  which  the  rich  man's  flocks 
browsed.  The  scene  of  this  story  lay  in  the  East,  in  a 
country  bordering  the  Mediterranean  Sea,  where  the  shep- 
herd's life  is  pecuharly  delightful  and  peculiarly  danger- 
ous— delightful  because  of  the  rich  pastures  and  sunny 
skies — dangerous  because  robber  bands  prowl  through  the 
country  and  are  apt  to  make  severe  inroads  on  the  flocks. 
Now,  on  the  occasion  referred  to,  the  herdsmen  of  our 
wealthy  lord  drove  his  flocks  far  away  from  his  residence 
into  the  mountains,  where  the  band  of  outlaws  were  hid- 
ing ;  but  the  leader  of  the  band,  being  more  noble  than 
men  of  this  class  usually^  are,  not  only  restrained  his  men 
from  committing  depredations  upon  the  flocks,  but  he  act- 
ually protected  them  from  the  attacks  of  other  robbers 
lurking  in  those  parts.  Soon  the  time  for  shearing  the 
sheep  came  round,  and  our  bandit  chief  then  sent  several 
of  his  followers  to  the  wealthy  sheep-owner  asking  that  he 
requite  their  services  with   a  few  pieces  of  mutton.     But 


14  TOPICS  OF  THE  TIMES. 

my  lord  the  sheep-owner  replied,  "  Who  is  this  fellow  that 
he  should  make  such  a  demand  of  me  ?  There  be  many- 
servants  nowadays  that  break  away  from  their  masters  ! 
Shall  I  then  take  my  bread  and  my  water  and  my  flesh 
that  I  killed  for  my  shearers,  and  give  it  unto  men  whom 
I  know  not  whence  they  be  ?  No  !  get  you  gone  !  "  So  the 
young  man  returned  to  the  chief  and  told  him  the  result  of 
his  request.  "Well,"  he  exclaimed,  "come,  boys,  gird 
ye  on  every  man  his  sword,"  and  we  will  show  this  fool 
who  are  masters  and  who  are  servants." 

So  they  sallied  forth,  four  hundred  strong,  armed  to  the 
teeth,  to  take  by  force  what  they  had  failed  to  goX  by 
peaceable  means.  But  lo,  on  the  way  they  met  the  wife 
of  my  lord  the  sheep-owner,  coming  with  a  body  of  servants 
and  ladened  asses,  bringing  a  large  supply  of  bread  and 
wine  and  mutton  and  raisins  and  figs.  And  she  fell  on  her 
face  before  the  outraged  chieftain,  beseeching  him  to  accept 
her  peace-offering  and  do  no  violence  to  her  fool  of  a  hus- 
band. Her  beauty  and  her  generosity  melted  the  heart  of 
the  noble  outlaw  and  he  gladly  accepted  her  bounty  and  in- 
voked a  blessing  upon  her  for  preventing  him  from  shedding 
of  blood.  Meanwhile,  her  husband,  who  knew  nothing  of 
his  wife's  conduct,  was  feasting  and  drinking  with  his 
friends  ;  as  a  result  of  his  carousal  he  was  taken  ill  the  next 
morning  and  died  in  ten  days  ;  and  then  his  beautiful  wife 
married  the  bandit  chief,  of  course. 

You  recognize  in  this  story  the  history  of  David  and 
Nabal.  It  is  written  in  the  twenty-fifth  chapter  of  the  First 
Book  of  Samuel,  and  I  submit  it  not  only  reads  like  a  novel 
but  it  is  most  suggestive  on  the  subject  in  hand.  Indeed 
it  reveals  both  the  causes  and  the  cures  of  all  labor  trouble, 
(i.)  We  remark  that  the  first  cause  of  this  conflict  between 
labor  and  capital  was  the  conlrast  between  the  conditioii  of 
David  and  that  of  Nabal.  It  was  the  contrast  between  the 
rich  man  and  Lazarus.  Nabal  had  abundance  and  to  spare  : 
David  had  nothing — not  even  a  shelter  for  his  head  save  a 
hole  in  the  ground,  and  he  had  six  hundred  men  follow- 
ing him  and  depending  upon  him  for  support.  Moreover, 
his  straitened  circumstances  were  not  due  to  any  fault  of 
his,  but  rather  to  the  jealousy  and  injustice  and  cruelty  of 
his  king — Saul.  It  is  no  wonder,  then,  that  he  should  seek 
food  from  his  wealthy  neighbor,  whose  flocks  he  had  not 
only  not  injured  but  had  actually  protected.     Now,    this 


CONFLICT  BETWEEN  LABOR  AND  CAPITAL.         15 

state  of  things  has  ever  preceded  a  social  revolution.  When 
Rome  was  tottering  to  her  fall,  we  are  told,  "a  whole 
population  might  be  trembling  lest  they  should  be  starved 
by  the  delay  of  an  Egyptian  corn  ship  from  Alexandria, 
while  the  upper  classes  were  squandering  a  fortune  on  a 
single  banquet,  drinkingoutofmyrrhine  and  jewelled  vases 
worth  thousands  of  dollars  ;  and  feasting  on  the  brains  of 
peacocks  and  the  tongues  of  nightingales.  Over  a  large 
part  of  Italy  most  of  the  free-born  population  had  to  con- 
tent themselves,  even  in  winter  with  a  tunic  ;  and  the 
luxury  of  a  toga  was  reserved  only,  by  way  of  honor,  to  the 
corpse.  Yet  at  this  very  time  the  dress  of  Roman  ladies 
displayed  an  unheard  of  splendor.  One,  it  is  said,  was 
seen  dressed  for  a  betrothal  feast  in  a  robe  entirely  covered 
with  pearls  and  emeralds,  which  had  cost  the  amazing  sum 
of  over  two  million  dollars  ;  and  this  was  known  to  be  less 
expensive  than  some  others. 

In  the  history  of  the  French  Revolution  of  the  last  cen- 
tury we  have  the  same  contrast  in  the  conditions  of  the 
rich  and  the  poor.  An  eminent  abbe  of  the  time  and  a 
leader  in  the  revolution,  exclaimed  in  the  National  Assem- 
bly :  ''What  is  the  77//W/ ^5/(2/^  /^  Everything.  What  has 
it  hitherto  been  in  the  body  politic  .?  Nothing.  What  does 
it  demand  .?  To  be  something.''  Whatever  exaggeration 
there  may  be  in  this  statement,  due  to  the  passion  of  the 
orator,  it  certainly  points  to  the  fact  that  the  great  mass  of 
the  French  people  were  slaves  to  the  upper-classes  and 
had  no  recognized  political  rights  worthy  of  mention. 

In  our  country  to-day  we  have  a  similar  state  of  things  : 
— on  the  one  hand  immense  fortunes — the  greatest  ever 
known — on  the  other,  the  most  abject  poverty.  "There 
are  worlds  and  worlds,"  says  Mr.  George,  **  even  within 
the  bounds  of  the  same  city.  The  man  who  comes  into 
New  York  with  plenty  of  money,  who  puts  up  at  the  Wind- 
sor or  Brunswick,  and  is  received  by  hospitable  hosts  in 
Fifth  Avenue  mansions,  sees  one  New  York.  The  man 
who  comes  with  a  dollar  and  a  half,  and  goes  to  the  fifteen 
or  twenty-five  cent  lodging  house  sees  another.  On  the 
one  hand  are  those  to  whom  life,  with  its  round  of  balls, 
parties,  theatres,  flirtations  and  excursions,  is  a  holiday, 
in  which,  but  for  invention  of  new  pleasures,  satiety  would 
make  time  drag.  But  this  bright  world  is  very  different 
from  that  of  the  old  woman  who,  in  the  dingy  lower  street. 


1 6  TOPICS  OF  THE  TIMES. 

sits  from  morning  to  night  beside  her  little  stock  of  apples 
and  candy  :  and  from  that  of  girls  who  stand  all  day  behind 
counters  and  before  looms,  who  bend  oversewing  machines 
for  weary,  weary  hours,  or  who  come  out  at  night  to  prowl 
the  streets.  Never  since  great  estates  were  eating  out  the 
heart  of  Rome  has  the  world  seen  such  enormous  fortunes 
as  are  now  rising  :  and  nevermore  utter  proletarians." 

What  is  true  of  New  York  is  true  of  all  our  large  towns 
and  cities.  Dives  and  Lazarus  lie  down  together,  the  one 
at  the  gate  with  the  dogs,  the  other  in  the  mansion  with  his 
sweet  wife  and  dear  children  and  congenial  friends.  But 
shall  we,  therefore,  conclude  that  a  great  revolution  is  brew- 
ino-  like  that  which  destroyed  Rome  and  rent  the  French 
Monarchy  asunder.?  We  cannot  say  positively,  but  we 
may  say  that  it  is  not  at  all  7iecessary—\\\^\  it  is  not  yet  too 
late  to  prevent  such  a  catastrophe.  We  remember  that 
Abigail  stepped  in  between  David  and  Nabal  and  averted 
the  threatened  destruction  of  the  fool,  and  we  may  hope 
that  the  spirit  of  Abigail  is  broad  in  our  land  to-day  and  is 
sufficiently  strong  to  settle  our  industrial  troubles. 

2.  The  second  cause  of  the  conflict  between  David  and 
Nabal  was  the  social  superiority  which  the  wealthy  deb- 
auchee asserted  over  the  noble-chieftain.  He  assumed 
that  because  he  was  rich  he  was  made  of  better  clay  than 
David  was.  He  therefore  exclaimed  in  much  haughtiness, 
"  Who  is  this  David,  and  who  is  the  son  of  Jesse  }  There  be 
m?iwy  servants  now-a-days  that  break  away  every  man  from 
his  master."  The  fact  was,  David  had  been  anointed  king 
over  Israel,  and  his  reduction  to  a  bandit  s  life  was  due  to 
the  injustice  and  cruelty  of  Saul,  not  to  his  in-herent  inferior- 
ity. All  his  pride,  all  ''The  old  Adam  "  in  him  therefore, 
was  aroused  by  this  insulting  reply  of  Nabal  and  he  very 
naturally  proposed  to  show  him  who  was  who.  Now  we 
hear  a  great  deal  of  talk  about  "the  dignity  of  labor''  and 
"the  brotherhood  of  man  "  in  our  day.  The  politician  is 
very  suave  in  his  address  and  very  cordial  in  his  grasp  of 
the  working  man's  hand— just  before  the  election  ;  the 
clergyman  paints  beautiful  pictures  of  the  Nazarene  Car- 
penter and  "love  in  a  cottage,"  and  very  fervently  calls 
the  working  men  "dear  brethren  "  on  Sunday,  but  unlike 
his  Master  he  is  not  so  ready  on  Monday  to  go  and 
dine  with  the  publicans  and  sinners.  He  enjoys  much 
more  a  chat  over  the  wine  glass  with  the  refined,  wealthy, 


CONFLICT  BE  TWEEN  LABOR  AND  CAPITAL.         17 

educated  employer  than  he  does  ''hard  tack"  and  a  g^lass 
of  milk  in  the  humble  lodging  of  his  employee.  Of  course 
it  is  not  so  in  every  case.  There  are  noble  exceptions 
among  both  the  clergy  and  laymen.  There  are  men  who 
will  lift  their  hat  to  the  working  man  and  his  wife  at  other 
times  than  election  days,  and  there  are  clergymen  who  not 
only  preach  but  practice  the  fraternity  of  Jesus.  But  un- 
questionably, these  are  exceptions  ;  else  working  men  would 
love  the  parson  and  the  politician  more  than  they  do.  The 
opinion  is  widespread  and  is  based  on  facts,  that  whatever 
may  be  the  "dignity  of  labor "  theoretically,  yet  money 
gives  one  power,  position,  and  even  character.  Hence  the 
young  woman  looks  out  for  a  "good  catch  "  and  the  broken 
down  aristocracy  of  England  and  France  come  to  America 
in  search  of  heiresses.  The  parson  and  the  politician,  the 
employer  and  the  employee,  all  seek  wealth,  and  when  they 
get  it  they  generally  speak  of  others  as  their  "servants," 
even  though  they  may  have  royal  blood  flowing  through 
their  veins.  And  this  is  as  true  of  working  men  who  become 
rich  as  those  who  inherit  their  wealth.  Indeed,  we  have 
all  doubtless  known  of  men,  who  have  "risen  in  hfe  "  and 
who  make  the  very  worse  kind  of  employers  and  the  most- 
unbearable  snobs.  But  this  sort  of  thing  arouses  the  very 
devil  in  men  who  know  that  whatever  may  be  their  mis- 
fortunes, their  blood  is  as  pure,  their  clay  is  as  good,  as 
that  which  sits  in  cushioned  chairs,  sleeps  on  golden  bed- 
steads, drives  in  a  coach  and  four  and  swills  wine  from 
silver  decanters.  Working  men  and  women  are  getting 
tired  of  being  called  "servants"  and  "hands" — mere  ma- 
chines to  enrich  others — and  so  they  are  beginning  to  cease 
to  respect  those  who  treat  them  as  Nabal  treated  David,  and 
we  need  not  wonder  if  they  feel  tempted  to  bring  fools  to 
their  senses  by  hard  knocks.  Don't  misunderstand  me. 
I  am  not  advocating  such  a  method  of  procedure.  I  am 
only  stating  facts,  and  maintaining  that  as  long  as  money 
instead  of  character  is  made  the  basis  of  social  superiority 
— as  long  as  the  relation  of  "master"  and  "  servant "  is 
emphasized — as  long  as  the  wealthy  employer  passes  his 
"hands"  on  the  street  as  he  would  a  crowd  of  dogs — so 
long  must  there  be  a  feeling  of  spite  and  ill-will.  Only 
by  a  recognition  of  the  dignity  of  man  as  man,  only  by  the 
acknowledgment  of  the  fact  that  his  employees  are  co- 
workers, partners   with  him,  can   any  pleasant  relation  be- 

2 


1 8  TOPICS  OF  THE   TIMES. 

tween  employer  and  employed  exist.  Don't  infer  from  this 
that  I  am  a  Sociahst,  for  I  am  not.  Socialism  is  too  much 
of  a  machine  system  to  suit  men,  but  it  rests  on  a  grand 
truth — a  truth  proclaimed  nineteen  centuries  ago  by  the 
Nazarene  Carpenter — the  truth  of  man's  unity  and  brother- 
hood. 

3.   A  third   and  indeed  the   most  important  cause  of  the 
conflict  between   David   and   Nabal   was  a  failure  on  the 
part  of  both  to  recognize  certain  rights.      David  was  right 
in  believing  that  he  should  be  rewarded  for  his  services, 
but  he  was  wrong  in   employing  force  to  get  such  remu- 
neration.    On  the  other  hand,  Nabal  cannot  be  utterly  con- 
demned  for   not  seeing    at    once    the    reasonableness    of 
David's  demands.      He  argued  thus  :    "I  pay  my  laborers 
what  I  promise  them.      I  never  asked  this  David  to  guard 
my    flocks  ;  he    did  it    of  his    own    accord.      Why,  then, 
should  I  pay  for  services  I  never  engaged .?     Shall  I  take 
my  bread  and  my  water  and  my  flesh   that  I   have   killed 
for  my  regularly  employed  laborers  and  give  it  unto  men, 
whom  1  know  not  whence  they  be.?"     David's  demand, 
therefore,  appeared  to  him  an   extravagant  and    insolent 
one,  provoking   unfeigned  astonishment  and  indignation. 
He  considered   it   an  invasion  of  his  rights — a  dictation 
with  respect  to  the  employment  of  that  which  was  his  own. 
Recollect,  too,  that  this  view  of  the  irresponsible  right  of 
property    was   not   Nabal's    invention.     It    was    the    view 
probably  entertained  by  all  his  class.     It  had   descended 
to  him  from  his   parents,    and  hence  he  could  not  be  ex- 
pected to  see  things  just  as  David  saw  them.     David   un- 
doubtedly had  a  moralv\g\\t  although  he  had  no  legal  right 
(to  use  a  modern  distinction),  to  a  portion  of  the  stuff  he 
had  protected,    and  Abigail,  with  the  keen  conscience  of 
the  woman,  saw  this  at  once,  and  hastened  to  satisfy  the 
just  demands  of  David.     But  Nabal  could  not  see  this,  and 
his    modern    representatives    are    quite    as    thick-headed. 
They  "do  business,  don't  you  know  !  "     They  don't  carry 
a  Bible  around  in  their  pockets,  or  paste  up  a  copy  of  the 
Ten    Commandments  and  the  Sermon   on   the  Mount  in 
their  shops  and  offices.     They  don't  object  to  hearing  the 
preacher  expound  these  great  truths  in  the  pulpit  on  Sunday, 
but  he  must  not  come  into  their  offices   Monday  morning 
and  urge    them  to  apply  the  principles  he  had  advocated 
the  day  before.     The  "business-man"  thinks  that  the  Ten 


CONFLICT  BETWEEN  LABOR  AND  CAPITAL.        19 

Commandments  have  as  little  to  do  with  business  as  the 
United  States  Senator  said  they  had  to  do  with  politics. 
They  do  very  well  to  preach  about,  but  the  minister  who 
steps  into  the  office  of  a  wealthy  parishioner  of  his  and 
urges  him  to  adopt  those  principles  in  his  business,  will 
be  politely  reminded  of  the  fact  that  "he  knows  nothing- 
about  business."  He  would  better  go  up  to  the  house  and 
talk  to  the  ladies,  or  go  home  and  say  his  prayers,  and 
prepare  his  sermon  and  let  "  business  men  "  run  the  shops  ! 
And  these  modern  Nabals  must  be  partially  excused  on  the 
ground  oi  false  education.  They  have  been  taught  that 
''  competition  is  the  life  of  trade" — that  "  wages  are  gov- 
erned by  the  law  of  supply  and  demand" — that  they  must, 
therefore,  buy  their  labor  in  the  cheapest  market,  and  that 
they  are  not  responsible  for  the  cheapness  of  labor.  This 
miserable  political  economy — this  false  and  immoral 
teaching, — has  been  pounded  into  their  minds  from  the 
cradle  up,  and  has  furnished  the  governing  principles  of 
business  for  generations,  and  we  cannot  therefore  be  sur- 
prised if  they  treat  David's  demand  as  an  invasion  of  their 
rights — a  dictation  to  which  they  must  not  submit.  Shallow 
people  often  say  it  matters  little  what  one  believes  !  It 
makes  a  tremendous  difference  what  one  believes  !  A 
man  who  believes  the  theories  just  alluded  to  will  never 
be  convinced  of  the  justice  of  the  laborers' demand,  but, 
like  Nabal,  will  spurn  it  from  him  with  astonishment  and 
indignation. 

Such,  then,  are  three  of  the  prime  causes  of  the  conflict 
between  labor  and  capital.  The  existence  of  great  wealth 
side  by  side  with  abject  poverty,  which  begets  the  con- 
viction in  the  mind  of  the  masses  that  there  is  a  screw 
loose  somewhere  in  the  social  machinery.  How  often  do 
we  hear  a  poor  man  say,  as  he  looks  at  his  wealthy  neigh- 
bor's fine  residence,  etc.,  "  It  doesn't  seem  right  that  a  few 
men  should  be  so  rich  and  the  many  so  poor  !  "  This  is 
not  simply  an  expression  of  envy,  but  it  is  a  condemnation 
of  the  social  and  industrial  system.  Then  the  pride  and 
arrogance  of  the  wealthy  toward  the  poor,  and  the  appli- 
cation of  false  economic  or  "  business  principles  "  so-called 
instead  of  great  moral  maxims  in  industrial  affairs,  con- 
tribute still  more  largely  to  the  production  of  a  conflict 

What  are  the  remedies  ? 

(i.)  Shall  it  \)Q  force,  such  as  David  employed?     God 


20  TOPICS  OF  THE  TIMES. 

forbid  !  As  Professor  Richard  T.  Ely,  of  the  Johns  Hop- 
kins University,  BaUimore — a  friend  of  the  vvorknig  men — 
says  :  ''It  is  high  time  for  those  men  to  keep  quiet,  who, 
httle  in  heart  and  mind,  have  no  better  remedy  for  social 
ills  than  physical  force.  They  fail  absolutely  to  understand 
the  age  in  which  they  live,  and  will  involve  us  all^  in  ruin 
if  allowed  to  execute  their  savage  plans." 

(2.)  Shall  we,  then,  adopt  the  Socialists  program — the 
joint  control  of  land  and  capital,  worked  by  associated 
labor.?  That  is,  shall  we  make  land  and  the  means  of 
production  common  (public)  property  and  the  State  the 
one  and  only  employer,  and  distribute  the  products  either 
according  to  the  7ieeds  or  the  deeds  of  the  individual 
workers .? 

Judging  from  the  enormous  sale  of  Mr.  Bellamy's  book 
("Looking  Backward"),  we  must  conclude  that  thou- 
sands of  the  best  minds  of  our  day  think  that  this  is 
the  panacea  for  our  social  ills.  But  as  already  stated,  I 
consider  Socialism  too  much  of  a  machine  system.  It 
would  not  allow  the  freedom  to  the  individual  that  it  prom- 
ises, and  I  for  one  don't  want  to  be  a  mere  pin  or  screw 
fixed  in  one  place  in  the  great  social  machine.  Mr.  Bella- 
my's picture  is  very  attractive,  in  some  respects,  especially 
in  the  dignity  assigned  to  labor  and  the  universal  plenty 
it  offers,  but  it  is  much  easier  to  draw  such  a  sketch  on 
paper  than  it  is  to  make  it  work  in  practice  ;  and  I  dare  say 
that  the  people  of  the  twentieth  or  the  twenty-fifth  century 
will  find  the  machine  offered  quite  as  unmanageable  as 
we  do. 

(3)  Shall  we,  then,  adopt  the  Anarchist's  proposition  : — 
abolish  all  laws  and  make  every  man  a  law  unto  himself.? 
Yes,  we  may  do  that — when  the  millefuiium  comes  f  But  if 
we  were  to  do  it  now  I  for  one  should  beg  to  be  transported 
at  once  to  Mars  or  some  other  planet !  The  Anarchists  are 
too  good  for  this  world,  and  should  all  be  sent  immediately 
to  Heaven  !  In  all  seriousness,  the  Anarchist  believes  that 
we  can  get  along  without  law,  and  that  it  should  there- 
fore be  altogether  abolished  ;  but  much  as  I  love  the 
Gospel,  I  fear  that,  human  nature  continuing  as  it  is,  the 
Gospel  must  be  spiced  with  law  for  some  centuries  to 
come — perhaps  less  law  than  we  now  have,  or,  at  least 
with  better  law,  but  still  we  must  have  some  law — the 
only  question  is,    What  and  Where  ? 


CONFLICT  BETWEEN  LABOR  AND  CAPITAL.         zt 

(4.)  Shall  we,  then  adopt  Henry  George's  theory — abol- 
ish private  ownership  in  land  by  the  appropriation  of  its 
economic  rent  as  taxes?  This  would  be  a  comparatively 
simple  solution  of  the  social  problem,  and  much  may  be 
said  in  its  favor.  But  many  of  us  cannot  agree  with  Mr. 
George  that  the  ownership  of  land  is  in  itself  criminal,  nor 
can  we  see  that  the  adoption  of  the  Single  Tax  would  re- 
move all  our  social  ills.  We  hold  that  labor  spent  upon 
land  gives  the  same  title  to  it  that  labor  spent  upon  the 
materials  of  a  house  gives  to  it,  and  Mr.  George  admits  that 
labor  spent  upon  a  house  makes  it  ours.  We  also  admit 
that  our  present  methods  of  taxation  are  about  as  unjust 
and  iniquitous  as  they  could  be,  but  we  fail  to  see  how  a?iy 
method  of  taxation  could  cure  all  of  our  industrial  evils. 
Now  it  must  not  be  inferred  from  this  glance  at  Socialism, 
Anarchism  and  Georgeism  that  I  don't  appreciate  the  high 
intellectual  and  moral  character  of  such  men  as  Mr.  Bellamy, 
Mt.  Hugh  Penticost  and  Mr.  George, 'or  that  I  consider 
their  theories  altogether  irrational  and  impracticable  :  far 
from  it !  I  have  the  utmost  respect  and  admiration  for  these 
men,  for  their  motives  and  aims,  and  I  doubt  not  that 
many  of  the  reforms  they  advocate  would  be  practicable  and 
beneficial — only  I  think  that  none  of  these  systems  taken 
as  a  whole,  contains  remedies  for  all  our  social  ills.  We  want 
a  system  larger  than  any  of  these,  which  will  comprehend 
all  their  truths  and  exclude  their  errors,  but  that  system  is 
yet  unborn. 

While,  then,  we  await  its  birth,  what  shall  we  do  to  be 
saved.?  "There  are  four  agencies,"  says  Professor  Ely, 
"  through  which  we  must  work  for  the  amelioration  of  the 
laboring  classes  as  well  as  of  all  classes  of  society.  These 
are  the  labor  organization,  the  school,  the  State,  and  the 
Church." 

I.  The  Labor  Organizalion — what  is  its  function  and 
duty .?  It  seems  to  me  that  labor  organizations  have  made 
a  grand  mistake  though  perhaps  a  natural  and  pardonable 
mistake.  They  have  imagined  that  their  great  object  was 
strikes, — the  raising  of  wages,  the  obtainment  of  their  de- 
sires by  means  of  force.  Of  course,  I  know  that  this  is 
not  avowed  in  their  platforms  as  their  prime  object,  and 
many  labor  leaders  have  always  been  strongly  opposed  to 
strikes,  except  as  the  last  resort,  and  some  may  have  op- 
posed them  altogether  on  principle.     But,  assuredly,  the 


2  2  TOPICS  OF  THE  TIMES. 

majority  of  working-  men  have  felt  that  they  must  obtain 
their  rights  by  force,  and  to  that  end  they  have  joined 
organizations.  They  made  the  mistake  of  David,  and  it  is 
to  be  hoped  that  the  recent  deplorable  strike  on  the  New 
York  Central  R.  R.  (1890)  will  be  the  last  one.  Strikes  are 
not  only  expensive,  they  not  only  disturb  business  and  de- 
stroy thousands  of  dollars  worth  of  property,  but  experience 
shows  that  they  are  for  the  most  part  useless — or  at  least 
that  more  harm  than  good  generally  results  from  them.  A 
spirit  of  bitterness  and  strife  on  both  sides  is  engendered 
which  does  harm  to  everybody,  and  must  be  deprecated. 
What,  then,  is  the  function  of  labor  organizations }  It  is 
threefold  ;  to  impart  information  on  economic  subjects,  to 
arbitrate  matters  in  dispute,  and  to  influence  legislatures  by 
petitions  and  otherwise.  I  have  the  word  of  working  men 
who  have  long  been  members  of  labor  organizations  that 
their  chief  benefit  vyas  the  education  the  members  received 
in  them.  By  means  of  lectures,  the  papers  published  and 
taken,  the  discussions  in  their  various  meetings,  etc.,  they 
stir  up  thought  on  economic  subjects,  and  surely  any 
one  who  has  even  a  superficial  knowledge  of  facts  must 
know  that  the  ignorance  of  the  simplest  principles  of  pol- 
itical economy  and  social  conditions  is  simply  prodigious, 
not  only — not  mainly  among  the  working  men, — but  also 
among  the  employing  classes.  Go  to  any  employer  and 
ask  him.  What  is  the  source  and  law  of  wages  }  and  he 
will  immediately  answer  that  wages  are  drawn  from  capi- 
tal and  governed  by  the  law  of  supply  and  demand  ;  and 
if  you  contradict  him  he  will  at  once  flare  up  and  declare 
you  to  be  "  a  labor  agitator,"  a  "Socialist,  "an  "Anarchist," 
a  Henry  George  man,  or  perhaps  the  devil  !  Yet  it  is  well 
known  to  most  intelligent  working  men  and  to  all  students 
of  economics  that,  not  only  have  the  Socialists  and  Anar- 
chists, Henry  George,  Gunton  and  other  so-called  "labor 
agitators,"  shown  that  the  popular  theory  of  wages  is  false, 
but  Gen.  Francis  A.  Walker,  Professor  Ely,  and  other  emi- 
nent political  economists  who  are  not  "labor  agitators," 
have  proved  the  same.  It  has  been  shown  that  wages  are 
not  drawn  from  capital,  but  from  the  products  of  labor — 
that  capital  is,  in  fact,  itself  a  product  of  labor — and  that 
wages  are  not  governed  by  the  "law  of  supply  and  de- 
mand," but  by  the  laborer's  standard  of  living — that  is,  the 
least  that  will  satisfy  his  needs,  and  by  the  utility  of  his 


CONFLICT  BETWEEN  LABOR  AND  CAPITAL.         23 

labor  to  the  employer.  Now,  the  erroneous  idea  of  wag^es 
which  most  employers  hold,  and  which  is  due  not  to  their 
depravity  of  heart  but  to  false  education,  produces  immense 
practical  difficulties  ;  and  yet  it  will  probably  never  be 
eradicated  from  their  minds  except  by  the  influence  of 
labor  organizations  and  their  friends.  By  a  wide  diffusion 
of  economic  knowledge  through  the  labor  journals,  lec- 
tures, etc.,  these  organizations  will  indirectly  and  slowly 
influence  the  general  press  of  the  country,  and  sow  good 
seed  which  will  ultimately  bear  fruit.  At  any  rate  the 
main  function  of  labor  organizations  is  educational,  and 
its  importance  cannot  be  over-estimated.  Another  func- 
tion is  arbitration,  and  as  the  organizations  generally  "rec- 
ognize this  in  their  platforms  it  is  unnecessary  to  dwell  long 
upon  it — only  they  should  not  let  this  principle  remain  a 
dead  letter.  The  working  men  should  restr  aintheir  Davids 
when  the  Nabals  arouse  them,  and  should  send  out  their  Ah\- 
gails.  Unfortunately,  the  beautiful  wives  of  the  employers 
will  not  be  easily  persuaded  to  follow  the  example  of  the  an- 
cient heroine  and  mediate  between  the  antagonists  and  so 
the  working  men  must  send  out  their  Abigails.  I  mean, 
of  course,  that  they  themselves  must  make  the  advance  in 
the  spirit  of  Abigail  and  be  governed  solely  by  reason  and 
conscience,  even  when  the  employers  are  not.  That  was 
the  spirit  of  the  Nazarene  Carpenter,  and  is  becoming  more 
and  more  the  spirit  of  the  times.  Experience  shows  that 
arbitration  works  better  than  force,  even  though  its  opera- 
tion be  slower,  and  the  laboring  men  have  to  suffer  consider- 
able loss  and  oppression  before  they  reap  its  rewards.  Arbi- 
tration is  destined  to  supersede  force  in  the  industrial  and 
political  world,  in  the  individual  and  international  relations, 
and  so  the  labor  organizations,  by  adopting  this  method  of 
adjusting  disturbed  industrial  relations  place  themselves  in 
the  very  vanguard  of  human  progress. 

Finally,  the  labor  organizations  can  exert  an  influence 
upon  the  national  and  state  legislatures.  "  What !  "  I  hear 
some  indignant  working  man  exclaim,  "  talk  about  the 
laboring  men  influencing  a  Senate  of  Millionaires  and  a 
House  of  boodled  Representatives  !  Nonsense  !  "  Yes, 
but  I  don't  mean  quite  that.  I  know  full  well  that  the  chief 
business  of  Congress,  as  it  is  now  constituted,  seems  to  be 
to  unseat  congressmen  that  have  really  been  elected,  to 
kick  down  doors  and  to  pass  partizan  legislative  acts,  and 


24  TOPICS  OF  THE   TIMES. 

of  course  it  is  absurd  to  think  that  such  a  Congress  will  do 
anything  for  working  men.  But  when  I  say  that  labor 
organizations  may  influence  the  legislature,  I  mean  they 
may  create  it.  Working  men,  vote  for  those  that  will  vote  for 
yoii!  By  that  I  don't  mean  that  you  should  necessarily 
form  a  working  man's  party,  though  that  may  be  the  ulti- 
mate result  of  your  action,  but  I  mean  that  you  should  for 
the  present  create  no  new  party  lines,  and  ignore  those 
already  existing,  and  vote  for  men  who,  you  have  good 
reason  to  believe,  will  consider  and  stand  by  your  interests 
in  the  National  and  State  Legislatures.  The  majority  of 
the  voters  of  this  country  are  working  men,  and  if  they  are 
oppressed  by  corrupt  *' boss  governed"  politicians  it  is 
their  own  fault.  They  have  the  remedy  in  their  own  hands 
and  whenever  they  choose  they  may  cleanse  the  political 
Augean  stables ;  and  then,  but  not  till  then,  can  they  hope 
for  help  from  the  Government  such  as  they  need.  All  this 
is  more  or  less  fully  recognized  in  the  platforms  of  the 
various  labor  organizations,  but  too  often  their  principles 
remain  dead  letters.  Hence  it  cannot  be  too  earnestly  urged 
upon  such  organizations,  that  they  have  among  their  mem- 
bers men  of  sufficient  brains,  and  through  their  medium 
they  may  get  sufficient  education  to  fit  them  for  Congress, 
and  they  should  be  sent  to  Congress  by  working  men. 

2.  A  second  agency  in  the  solution  of  the  labor  prob- 
lem mentioned  by  Dr.  Ely  is  the  School.  "Chief  atten- 
tion (he  says)  should  be  directed  to  the  young,  and  with  a 
good  will  and  energetic  action  they  can  be  so  influenced 
as  to  change  the  character  of  the  population  materially  in 
one  generation.  They  should,  when  necessary,  be  re- 
moved from  vicious  surroundings  and  universal  and  com- 
pulsory education  ought  to  reach  every  child  in  the  land. 
Schools  may  be  improved  by  the  introduction  of  instruction 
in  manners  and  morals.  Manual  training  for  boys,  sewing 
and  cooking  for  girls,  gymnastic  exercises  and  suitable 
structures  for  both  are  all  desirable,  and  would  yield  a 
large  return  for  every  dollar  invested."  One  of  the  great 
political  parties  to-day  professes  to  be  very  much  interested 
in  "the  protection  of  labor."  If,  now,  instead  of  taxing 
the  commodities  the  poor  man  uses,  it  would  provide  the 
means  of  making  his  labor  more  efficient,  and  therefore 
more  valuable,  we  should  be  more  inclined  to  believe  in 
its  cry  of  "protection  to  labor  ;  "  and  when  we  think  of  the 


CONFLICT  BETWEEN  LABOR  AND  CAPITAL,         25 

millions  the  Nation  spends  in  educating  men  at  Annapolis 
and  West  Point  for  the  purpose  of  killin<^  their  fellow  men 
(which  purpose  fortunately  is  not  often  fultilled),  we  think 
that  a  crumb  flung-  to  the  working-  man  in  the  shape  of  in- 
dustrial training  would  be  not  simply  a  boon  to  him  but  a 
blessing  to  society  as  a  whole.  But  again  it  is  necessary 
that  working  men  should  be  represented  in  the  National 
and  State  Legislatures  before  they -can  expect  the  State  aid 
they  need  in  education.  Until  then  they  must  be  content 
to  "see  "the  surplus"  of  their  hard  earnings,  that  accumu- 
lates from  time  to  time  in  the  Treasury,  spent  on  public 
buildings  in  the  various  congressional  districts,  and  for 
other  purposes  which,  however  commendable  they  may 
be,  are  far  less  important  than  the  intellectual  and  social 
elevation  of  the  people. 

Of  course,  there  are  various  objections  urged  against 
State  aid  to  education.  Some  object  to  it  on  religious 
grounds  others  on  economic  grounds,  but  "proof  of  the 
pudding  is  eating  it,"  and  whatever  may  be  the  defects  of 
our  public  school  system — and  they  are  neither  few  nor 
trifling — it  produces  much  more  good  than  evil ;  it  is  a 
national  blessing  ;  and  may  be  greatly  improved,  especially 
by  the  addition  of  a  system  of  manual  training. 

3.  The  third  agency  in  industrial  regeneration  which 
Dr.  Ely  suggests  is  the  State.  "The  individual,"  he  says, 
"has  his  province,  the  State  has  its  functions,  which  the 
individual  cannot  accomplish  at  all  or  cannot  accomplish 
so  well.  But  an  obstacle  to  the  proper  economic  activity  of 
the  State  has  been  found  in  the  low  view  men  have  too  often 
taken  of  its  nature.  Calling  it  an  atomistic  collection  of 
units,  some  have  even  gone  so  far  as  to  speak  of  taxation 
for  the  support  of  Public  Schools  as  robbery  of  the  prop- 
ertied classes.  Now  it  may  be  rationally  maintained  that 
if  there  is  anything  divine  on  this  earth,  it  is  the  State,  the 
product  of  the  same  God-given  instincts  which  led  to  the 
establishment  of  the  Church  and  the  Family."  Of  course, 
the  Professor  does  not  mean  that  any  particular  State  as  it 
actually  exists  to-day,  much  less  does  he  mean  that  the 
Government  (which  the  popular  mind  generally  identifies 
with  the  State)  is  divine,  but  he  means  the  State  as  \ishould 
he, — a  real  Government  "  of  the  people,  by  the  people,  and 
for  the  people  "  would  be  divine.  In  other  words,  the  idea  of 
the  State  is  of  Divine  orisrin,  as  is  the  idea  of  the  Church  and 


26  TOPICS  OF  THE  TIMES. 

Family,  while  its  actual  realization  among^  human  being-s 
necessarily  partakes  more  or  less  of  all  human  attempts  to 
attain  to  the  Divine.  But  supposing- the  people — the  great 
masses — are  fairly  represented  in  the  Government,  and  this 
may  be  accomplished  by  an  intelligent  use  of  the  ballot  by 
the  people,  then  the  State  may  perform  the  following-  func- 
tions to  great  advantage  :  It  can  shorten  the  hours  of 
labor  ;  it  can  equalize  taxation  and  abolish  all  restrictions 
upon  commerce  :  it  can  cease  from  discriminative  legisla- 
tion, by  which  the  few  are  enriched  at  the  expense  of  the 
many  :  it  can  prohibit  child  labor,  and  provide  educational 
facilities  for  the  masses  :  it  can  regulate  immigration — pro- 
tect American  working  men,  not  from  the  products  of  "  the 
pauper  labor  of  Europe,"  but  from  ''  the  pauper  labor"  it- 
self :  it  can  give  women  their  rights — enact  that  women 
who  do  the  work  of  men  shall  receive  the  wages  of  men  : 
it  can  provide  for  the  careful  inspection  and  due  ventilation 
of  factories,  mines,  etc.,  it  can  establish  Postal  Savings 
Banks,  and,  Dr.  Ely  would  add,  it  can  and  should  control 
municipal  gas-works,  electric  lighting,  waterworks,  street 
railways,  telephones,  telegraphs,  and  steam  railways. 
Whether  it  should  go  so  far  as  that  or  not,  the  State  may 
certainly  do  the  most  of  these  things  without  running  into 
Socialism  and  to  great  and  endless  comfort  of  millions.  I 
do  not  forget  the  Anarchists'  objections  to  all  this,  but  I 
cannot  consider  them  now. 

Dr.  Ely  maintains  that  there  are  certain  businesses,  such 
as  the  telegraph  and  railroad,  that  are  monopolies  by  their 
very  nature — "natural  monopolies,"  as  distinguished  from 
these  monopolies  created  by  legislation  :  and  beholds  that 
State  control  of  these  natural  monopolies  would  redound  to 
the  welfare  of  the  whole  community,  and  would  be  much 
better  than  their  private  management.  If  so  let  us  have 
State  control  of  such  businesses.  But  let  the  superiority  of 
public  control  over  private  enterprise  be  fully  proved  by 
facts  and  reasons  before  it  be  adopted.  The  great  ques- 
tion of  the  day  is,  How^  to  adjust  the  relation  of  monopolis- 
tic and  individualistic  enterprises .?  and  Professor  Ely's 
suggestions  on  this  point  are  very  important.  But  without 
discussing  this  question  at  length  it  is  all  important  to  em- 
phasize the  fact  that  the  State  has  an  industrial  or  econo- 
mic function,  as  well  as  a  civil  and  military  function — that 
the  economic  function  is,  in  fact,  the  most  important;  and 


CONFLICT  BETWEEN  LABOR  AND  CAPITAL.         27 

this  is  fully  recog-nized  by  tariff  legislators— only  they  put 
the  shoe  on  the  wrong  foot. 

4.  Finally,  the  Church  must  claim  her  full  place  as  a 
social  power  existing  independently  of  the  State.  And  now, 
lest  it  be  thought  that  1  have  a  clergyman's  interest  in  this 
matter,  I  shall  quote  Prof.  Ely's  words  on  this  subject  also. 
**  A  wider  diffusion  of  sound  ethics  (hesays)is  an  economic 
requirement  of  the  times.  Christian  ethics— by  all  acknowl- 
edged to  be  the  most  perfect  system  of  ethics,  regardless 
of  any  divine  origin — contain  the  principles  which  should 
animate  the  entire  labor  movement.  But  how  are  men  to 
learn  these  .^  The  masses  can  acquire  such  an  acquaint- 
ance with  the  data  of  ethics  as  to  render  them  a  living 
reality  only  through  some  one  who  is  a  personal  embodi- 
ment of  them.  Abstract  ethics  have  not  and  never  will  be- 
come a  mighty  vital  power  in  this  world.  It  is  the  con- 
crete that  moves  men.  Now^  I  know  only  one  perfect  con- 
crete embodiment  of  Christian  ethics  and  that  is  their  Foun- 
der !  He  it  is  who  must  become  the  personal  Saviour  of  the 
labor  movement,  if  it  is  ever  to  accomplish  its  legitimate 
end.  American  working  men  will  sooner  or  later  perceive 
that  the  Christian  Church  is  not  hostile  to  their  just  aspira- 
tions, but  rather  their  best  friend.*"  It  must  not  be  inferred 
from  this  that  Dr.  Ely  is  blind  to  the  faults  of  the  Church, 
or  that  he  commends  it  as  a  whole.  On  the  contrary,  no 
one  has  denounced  more  severely  than  he  the  sins  of  Chris- 
tians and  the  failure  of  the  clergy  to  do  their  part  in  this 
great  work.  But  he  recognizes  the  fact  that  all  human  so- 
cieties must  be  more  or  less  imperfect — that  the  tares  and 
the  wheat  must  grow^  together  :  still  he  urges,  rightly,  that 
the  wheat  is  there.  "Enumerate  (he  says)  the  men  outside 
of  the  laboring  classes  prominent  for  their  advocacy  of  the 
cause  of  labor,  write  all  the  names  on  a  slip  of  paper  and 
cross  out  the  names  of  clergymen,  and  you  will  find  three 
fourths  of  them  gone.  No  other  large  or  influential  class  in 
the  United  States  is  so  devoted  to  the  working  men's  welfare, 
and  I  know  how  to  give  them  no  better  advice  than  to  urge 
them  to  seek  counsel  and  friendly  aid  in  all  their  endeavors 
from  Christian  ministers."  Now,  if  this  did  not  come  from 
a  layman  and  one  who  is  know^n  to  be  a  friend  of  the 
working  man,  I  should  hesitate  to  quote  it,  lest  it  be  thought 
that  I  was  pleadingr  my  own  cause.  But  I  must  confess 
that  I  agree  with  Prof.  Ely.     Through  the  Nazarene  Car- 


2  8  TOPICS  OF  THE  TIMES. 

penter,  his  Church  and  his  Ministers,  will  great  blessings 
be  obtained  for  the  laboring  classes.  I  have  already 
frankly  admitted  that  the  majority  of  the  Clergy  are  not  as 
wide  awake  on  social  and  industrial  subjects  as  they  ought 
to  be,  although,  as  Dr.  Ely  says,  there  maybe  more  of  the 
Clergy  than  other  professional  men  interested  in  the  labor- 
er's welfare.  I  have  received  no  special  favor  from  my 
clerical  brethren  that  I  should  defend  them,  but  I  do 
believe  that  most  of  them  are  kindly  disposed  to  the  work- 
ing men  and  would  fain  render  them  a  good  service.  The 
reason  why  more  of  them  do  not  do  this  is  found,  not  in 
their  depravity  of  heart  but  in  their  false  education.  There 
is  not  {as  there  should  be)  a  chair  in  social  science  in  every 
one  of  our  theological  seminaries  to  teach  candidates  for  the 
ministry  hoW  to  apply  Christian  principles  to  the  solution  of 
the  complicated  industrial  problems.  They  are  not  taught 
that  the  Church  has  an  important  part  to  perform  in  the  po- 
litical and  social  sphere.  On  the  contrary,  they  are  taught 
that  "Christ's  Kingdom  is  not  of  this  world" — that  "the 
Church  has  nothmg  to  do  with  politics" — that  this  subject 
must  not  be  mentioned  in  the  pulpit.  Their  minds  are 
crammed  full  of  Latin,  Greek  and  Hebrew;  they  are  taught 
how  to  prove  that  miracles  happened  nineteen  centuries 
ago — or  rather  they  are  taught  to  attempt  to  prove  this, 
but  the  teaching  for  the  most  part  is  a  failure  :  they  are 
taught  Church  history  in  order  to  show  that  their  Church 
is  the  Church — the  only  Church  :  they  are  in  short,  taught 
sectarian  theology — theories  of  Inspiration,  theories  of  the 
God-head,  theories  of  the  Atonement,  theories  of  future 
retribution,  theories  on  this  and  theories  on  that  subject, 
but  they  are  7iot  taught  the  grand  truths  contained  in  the 
Sermon  on  the  Mount,  the  command  ,  "Thou  shalt  !ove  thy 
neighbor  as  thyself, "  or  in  such  parables  as  that  of  the  Good 
Samaritan.  I  mean  they  are  not  taught  to  apply  these  great 
principles  in  detail  to  particular  cases  of  political  corrup- 
tion and  social  oppression  regardless  of  whom  they  offend. 
But  we  have  reason  to  hope  that  the  day  is  not  distant 
when  these  things  will  be  done  while  those  things  will  not 
be  left  undone.  No  one  believes  more  firmly  than  I  do  in 
a  thorough  education  of  the  clergy  in  the  Languages,  Apol- 
ogetics, Theology,  Church  History,  etc.  ;  if  these  subjects 
were  taught  philosophically  and  not  from  a  narrow  sec- 
tarian point  of  view,  no  one  would  object  to  such  teaching  : 


CONFLICT  BETWEEiV  LABOR  AND  CAPITAL. 


29 


but  neither  Christ  nor  Saint  Paul  devoted  himself  to  theologi- 
cal instruction.  They  rather  emphasized  practical  religion, 
and  this  is  what  we  must  have.  Meanwhile,  I  plead  for 
the  clergy  on  the  same  ground  as  that  on  v/hich  I  have 
based  a  plea  for  the  Nabals — that  is,  on  the  ground  of  false 
education.  Both  are  educated  after  a  fashion,  but  it  is  not 
such  an  education  as  will  lead  them  to  do  the  work  we  are 
now  talking  about.  Working  men,  therefore,  must  not 
make  unreasonable  demands  of  the  clergy.  Let  them  re- 
member that  they  are  mere  human  beings  :  let  them  con- 
sider the  amazing  influence  of  environment  or  surround- 
ings, the  force  of  heredity  and  early  education  :  above  all, 
let  them  remember  that  some,  indeed  many,  clergymen  are 
already  aroused  and  are  doing  what  they  can,  and  their  ex- 
ample and  influence  will  tell  in  due  time.  What  the  work- 
ing men  should  do  is  not  to  stand  aloof  from  the  Clergy 
and  the  Church,  for  they  certainly  can  never  win  their  help 
by  such  means  :  nor  should  they  denounce  them  either  in 
a  bunch  or  individually,  but  they  should  ^^i  possession  of 
the  Clergy  and  the  Church.  We  want  a  Working-man's 
Church,  if  not  a  Working-man's  Political  Party,  and  the 
working  men  can  give  us  this.  They  can  put  their  men 
into  the  ministry  and  build  them  churches,  and  tell  them 
to  preach  not  theology  but  the  "  ology"  of  Jesus  Christ — 
the  Gospel  of  Good  Deeds — and  then  they  should  go  to 
hear  that  Gospel.  I  have  found  that  working  men  will 
sometimes  go  to  church  when  the  minister  proposes  to 
preach  on  .their  favorite  topic — say  the  Eight  Hour  Move- 
ment, Socialism,  Georgeism,  and  such  like — but  they  will 
not  go  at  other  times.  Of  course,  I  know  that  we  natu- 
rally like  to  hear  the  subjects  we  are  specially  interested  in 
discussed  better  than  we  like  to  hear  other  topics  preached 
about ;  but  we  should  remember  that  other  people  are  in- 
terested in  different  subjects,  and  so  we  should  be  as  will- 
ing to  listen  to  discussions  on  those  subjects  as  they  are  to 
hear  sermons  on  our  favorite  topics,  and  when  we  refuse 
to  do  this  it  looks  like  the  child's  "I  won't  play  if  you  don't 
do  to  suit  me." 

The  minister  preaches  to  all  classes  :  he  is  the  friend 
of  all — the  rich  and  the  poor  alike — and  must  not  take  sides 
just  to  gain  the  favor  of  either  party.  It  will  be  remembered 
that  a  young  man  came  to  Jesus  on  one  occasion,  and 
asked  him  to  speak  to  his  brother  that  he  divide  his  living 


30 


TOPICS  OF  THE   TIMES. 


with  him,  but  the  Master  refused  to  do  so  saying,  "Who 
made  me  a  judge  and  divider  over  you  ?"  (Luke  xii.  13- 
15).  He  was  the  friend  of  both  and  would  not  therefore 
take  sides  ;  but  he  immediately  laid  down  the  great  princi- 
ple which  should  govern  both  parties,  viz.  :  ''Beware  of 
coveiousncss  !  "  That  is  the  position  the  Clergy  must  take 
on  the  labor  question  :  they  must  denounce  spiritual  wick- 
edness in  high  as  well  as  in  low  places  without  fear  or 
favor,  but  they  must  not  become  partizans,  and  the  work- 
ing men  must  not  ask  them  to  do  just  as  they  would  have 
them  do  and  swear  at  them  and  desert  them  if  they  don't 
do  this.  Let  them  stand  by  the  parsons  and  the  parsons 
will  stand  by  them— at  least  some  of  them  will — and  they 
can  easily  separate  the  sheep  from  the  goats. 


AN  EXPOSITION  OF  NA  TIONALISM.  3 1 


AN  EXPOSITION  OF  NATIONALISM. 

In  our  day  the  world  is  deluged  with  books,  and  the 
flood  is  so  great  that  it  sweeps  many  thousands  of  volumes 
into  the  whirlpool  of  oblivion  almost  as  soon  as  they  are 
produced.  Among  the  comparatively  few  books  that  are 
destined  to  escape  this  fate  and  exert  a  lasting  influence 
upon  the  thought  and  life  of  the  nation  is  Edward  Bellamy's 
**  Looking  Backward."  It  is  not  only  interesting  as  a 
novel,  it  has  not  only  had  a  larger  sale  than  perhaps  any 
book  of  the  age,  but  it  deals  with  facts  and  conditions  that 
will  claim  the  attention  of  the  best  minds  for  many  genera- 
tions to  come,  and  as  long  as  "the  social  problem  "  remains 
unsolved,  so  long  will  the  views  advocated  by  Mr.  Bel- 
lamy prove  interesting,  and  to  many  persons  attractive,  if 
for  no  other  reason  simply  because  Socialism,  which  is 
merely  another  name  for  Nationalism,  offers  one  of  the 
noblest  ideals  to  man  and  society.  It  promises  a  fulfill- 
ment of  the  great  prophecy,  that  men  would  one  day  ''beat 
their  swords  into  plowshares,  and  their  spears  into  prun- 
ing hooks,"  and  allow  every  one  to  live  peaceably  and 
happily  under  his  own  vine  and  fig  tree.  It  proclaims  the 
possible  realization  of  the  Nazarene's  doctrine  of  a  Univer- 
sal Brotherhood,  and  hence,  it  will  always  stir  the  souls 
of  philanthropists.  For  such  reasons  it  .is  here  pro- 
posed to  give  another  exposition  of  Nationalism,  in  order 
that  its  power  and  principles  and  objects  may  be  more 
widely  known.  I  shall  not  attempt  much  criticism,  but 
simply  explain  the  Nationalist  programme,  and  perhaps, 
point  out  its  good  features,  leaving  to  others  the  indication 
of  its  weakness  and  shortcomings.  The  first  point  to  be 
made  clear  is  the  exact  nature  of  Nationalism,  for  there  is 
profound  ignorance,  even  among  otherwise  well  informed 
people  as  to  what  Socialism  is,  and  especially  as  to  what 
it  aims  to  do.  They  know  that  the  Socialists  attack  the 
industrial   system,    and  would  overturn  the  social  order, 


32  TOPICS  OF  THE  TIMES. 

and  they  immediately  conclude  that  a  bloody  revolution, 
Hke  that  which  occurred  in  France  at  the  close  of  the  last 
century,  is  proposed.  Nothing  of  the  kind  !  There  are 
peaceful  revolutions,  and  these  peaceful  revolutions  are  as 
necessary  to  the  life  and  progress  of  humanity,  as  are  the 
revolutions  of  the  Earth  around  the  Sun.  Jesus  Christ  was 
the  greatest  revolutionist  that  ever  lived,  but  we  are  not 
afraid  of  Him  ;  on  the  contrary,  we  want  to  fight  under  his 
banner.  So  the  Socialists,  for  the  most  part,  are,  in  spirit, 
followers  of  Jesus — certainly  Mr.  Bellamy  is — and  hence 
their  characters  should  be  a  sufficient  refutation  of  this 
popular  error. 

Socialism,  then,  means  the  joint  control  of  land  and  cap- 
ital worked  by  associated  labor.  In  other  words,  land,and 
the  means  of  production  are  to  be  made  common  public 
property,  the  State  the  one  and  only  employer,  and  the 
products  are  to  be  divided  according  to  the  needs  or  the 
deeds  of  the  laborers.  Hence,  we  read  in  "  Looking 
Backward  "  that,  by  the  close  of  the  twentieth  century,  in- 
dustry and  commerce  had  ceased  to  be  conducted  by  a  set 
of  irresponsible  corporations  and  syndicates  of  private  per- 
sons at  their  caprice  and  for  their  profit,  and  were  intrusted 
to  a  single  syndicate  representing  the  people  to  be  con- 
ducted in  the  common  interest  for  the  common  profit.  The 
Nation,  that  is  to  say,  was  organized  as  the  one  great 
business  corporation  in  which  all  other  corporations  were 
absorbed  :  it  became  the  one  capitalist  in  the  place  of  all 
other  capitalists,  the  sole  employer,  the  final  monopoly  in 
which  all  previous  and  lesser  monopolies  were  swallowed 
up,  a  monopoly  in  the  profits  and  economies  of  which  all 
citizens  shared.  Socialism,  thus  proclaims  all  men  to  be 
brothers  :  it  condemns  the  principle  of  "competition"  as 
is  rational  and  brutal,  and  would  substitute  ''co-operation" 
or  "  association  "  in  its  place  ;  it  aims  at  a  substantial 
equality  of  wealth  among  the  citizens  of  a  society,  which 
equality  will  be  the  result  not  of  an  arbitrary  division  from 
time  to  time,  of  the  products  of  the  country  (as  many  fool- 
ishly suppose),  but  it  will  be  the  result  of  service  rendered 
— the  natural  result  of  the  industrial  system.  Among  the 
measures  proposed  by  the  Nationalists  are  :  ist — Nation- 
alization of  railroads,  whether  by  constituting  the  United 
States  perpetual  receiver  of  all  lines,  to  manage  the  same 
for  the  public  interest,  paying  over  to  the  present  security 


AN  EXPOSITION  OF  NA TIONALISM.  '^'^ 

holders,  pending  the  complete  establishment  of  Nation- 
alism, such  reasonable  dividends  on  a  just  valuation  of  the 
property  as  may  be  earned,  or  by  some  other  practicable 
method  not  involving  hardship  to  individuals ;  2d — Nation- 
alization of  telegraphs  and  telephones,  and  their  addition  to 
the  post-office,  to  which,  as  departments  of  transmission  of 
intelligence,  they  are  said  to  properly  belong  ;  3d — The  ex- 
press business  of  the  country  will  be  connected  with  the  post- 
office,  as  it  is  now  in  some  countries  ;  4th — Coal  mining, 
which  at  present  is  most  rapaciously  conducted  as  respects 
the  public,  and  most  oppressively  as  regards  a  great  body 
of  laborers,  will  be  nationalized,  to  the  end  that  the  mines 
may  be  continuously  worked  to  their  full  capacity,  coal 
furnished  the  consumers  at  cost,  and  the  miners  humanely 
dealt  with  ;  5th — MunicipaHties  generally  shall  undertake 
lighting,  heating,  street  car  service,  and  such  other  public 
services  as  are  now  performed  by  corporations,  to  the  end 
that  such  services  may  be  more  cheaply  and  effectually 
rendered.  A  fruitful  source  of  political  corruption  will  be 
by  this  means  cut  off,  and  a  large  body  of  laborers  will  be 
brought  under  the  humane  conditions  of  toil.  Of  course, 
all  nationalized  and  municipalized  industries  will  be  con- 
ducted at  cost  for  use  and  not  for  profit.  Moreover,  this 
nationalization  of  industry  is  to  be  a  gradual  process.  ''We 
advocate,"  say  the  Nationalists,  "no  sudden  or  ill-con- 
sidered changes  ;  we  make  no  war  on  individuals  ;  we  do 
not  censure  those  who  have  accumulated  immense  fortunes 
simply  by  carrying  to  a  logical  end  the  false  principles 
upon  which  they  are  now  based." 

The  operation  of  these  industries  by  the  State,  according 
to  Mr.  Bellamy,  will  be  somewhat  as  follows  :  The  industrial 
force  will  be  organized  on  the  principles  of  the  standing 
army.  First ;  the  worker  (man  or  woman)  will  be  put 
through  a  course  of  mental,  physical  and  manual  training, 
until,  at  the  age  of  twenty-one,  he  or  she  w^ill  be  mustered 
into  service.  The  worker  will,  of  course,  be  allowed  to 
select  whatever  profession  or  business,  he  may  desire,  and 
after  the  thorough  course  of  training  to  which  he  would  be 
subjected,  it  would  be  comparatively  easy  to  make  a  choice. 
All  work  would  bring  exactly  the  same  remuneration,  that 
is  to  say,  each  one  would  receive  all  the  necessaries  and 
comforts  of  life,  and  in  return  would  be  required  to  render 
only  such  service  as  he  was  able  to  perform.     To  the  obvi- 

3 


34  TOPICS  OF  THE  TIMES. 

ous  objection  that  such  an  argument  would  allow  idleness 
and  be  unjust  to  some,  it  is  answered  ;  ist — The  man  who 
is  intellectually  and  physically  able  to  do  more  work  than 
others  is  more  morally  bou?id  to  do  it,  and  a  correct  public 
opinion  would  see  this  at  once  ;  2d — In  order  to  get  every 
one  to  do  his  best  certain  powerful  inducements  would  be 
offered,  not  in  the  way  of  money,  for  under  the  Socialistic 
regime  there  would  be  no  money,  but  in  the  shape  of  more 
powerful  incentives.  "  Does  it  really  seem,"  asks  Mr.  Bel- 
lamy, ''that  human  nature  is  insensible  to  any  motives 
save  fear  of  want  and  love  of  luxury  t  No  !  When  it  is  a 
question  of  the  grandest  class  of  efforts,  the  most  absolute 
self-devotion  they  depend  on  quite  other  incentives.  Not 
higher  wages,  but  honor  and  hope  of  men's  gratitude,  pat- 
riotism and  the  inspiration  of  duty  are  the  motives  we  set 
before  soldiers  when  it  is  a  question  of  dying  for  the  nation, 
and  never  was  there  an  age  of  the  world  when  these  motives 
did  not  call  out  what  is  best  and  noblest  in  men. "  It  should 
be  remembered  that,  under  the  socialistic  system,  these 
motives  would  be  greatly  strengthened  by  the  early  educa- 
tion of  the  young  and  the  lofty  public  opinion,  and  money 
being  abolished,  the  powerful  incentives  consisting  of  desire 
of  influence,  of  social  elevation  (i.e.,  prominent  position),  a 
reputation  for  ability  and  success,  would  be  the  only  motives 
which  could  operate,  and  considering  the  might  of  these 
motives  in  a  large  minority  of  cases,  even  now,  it  is  not 
irrational  to  believe  that  the  whole  nation  might,  under 
proper  conditions,  be  moved  by  them  ;  so  that  laziness 
would  by  no  means  characterize  the  socialistic  order.  But  if 
all  these  motives  should  fail  to  influence  some  hard,  obsti- 
nate, brutish  ones,  there  is  the  workhouse  or  prison  which 
may  be  used  as  the  last  resort.  ' '  A  man  able  to  do  his  duty, " 
says  Mr.  Bellamy,  "  and  persistently  refusing,  is  sentenced 
to  solitary  imprisonment  on  bread  and  water  till  he  con- 
sents." 

Supposing  then,  that  these  motives  are  sufficient  to  make 
each  one  do  his  duty,  at  the  age  of  twenty-one  he  would 
be  mustered  into  service,  in  which  he  would  remain  until 
he  was  forty-five.  At  first,  he  would  be  classed  among  un- 
skilled laborers,  and  would  remain  in  this  category  for 
three  years.  From  this  common  stock  would  be  drawn 
workmen  for  the  different  pursuits  and  professions,  and 
after  a  man  had  chosen  his  trade  or  profession,  he  would, 


AN  EXPOSITION-  OP  NA  TIONALISM. 


35 


of  course,  as  in  our  day,  generally  stick  to  it  on  account  of 
his  knowledge  in  this  special  line,  and  the  associations  he 
would  form,  but  he  might  if  he  chose  abandon  one  trade 
or  profession  and  adopt  another.  At  the  age  of  forty-five, 
as  just  stated,  each  one  would  be  retired  and  then  life  would 
really  begin.  Under  this  regime,  a  man  would  look  for- 
ward to  his  forty-fifth  year,  as  the  schoolboy  now  looks 
forward  to  his  graduation,  and  by  reason  of  his  early  train- 
ing, his  first  class  mental  and  physical  development,  he 
would  be  younger  at  forty-five  than  men  now  are  at  twenty- 
one.  Besides,  he  would  be  sure  of  an  abundance  of  the 
comforts  of  life,  not  only  for  himself  but  for  his  children, 
and  hence  the  afternoon  and  evening  of  life  would  be  the 
most  delightful  part  of  it,  instead  of  the  most  gloomy  part 
as  it  now  is. 

The  most  important  function  of  the  Presidency  of  the 
Socialistic  State  would  be  the  headship  of  the  industrial 
army.  This,  according  to  Mr.  Bellamy,  might  be  divided 
into  ten  or  more  great  departments  each  representing  a 
group  of  allied  industries,  each  particular  industry  being  in 
turn  represented  by  a  subordinate  bureau,  which  would 
keep  a  complete  record  of  the  plant  and  force  under  its  con- 
trol, of  the  present  product  and  the  means  of  increasing  it, 
etc.  Statistics  would  of  course  be  annually  furnished,  and 
on  these  estimates  of  the  probable  demand  for  the  various 
articles  of  consumption  would  be  based,  and  production 
would  be  governed  accordingly.  In  each  town,  or  city, 
there  would  be  a  great  central  warehouse  to  which  all 
articles  would  be  sent  and  stored.  Scattered  through  the 
town  would  be  ' '  sample-stores,"  one  in  each  ward  in  which 
would  be  deposited  samples  of  all  goods  manufactured  by 
the  nation,  and  to  which  the  customer  would  go  to  make  a 
selection.  Of  course,  the  goods  would  be  sent  by  electrical 
cars  or  otherwise  to  the  home  of  the  purchaser.  In  these 
stores  there  would  be  no  such  clerks  as  those  in  our  stores — • 
none  to  urge  people  to  buy  what  they  do  not  want,  and  to 
swindle  them  when  they  do  buy.  What  a  prodigious 
amount  of  lying  and  thievery  would  thus  be  prevented  ! 
One  of  the  most  striking  propositions  of  Air.  Bellamy,  is 
the  abolition  of  banks.  As  there  w^ould  be  no  such  thing  as 
money  under  the  Nationalistic  regime,  banks  would,  of 
course,  be  useless,  and  so  the  mighty  host  whose  business 
is  simply  the  handhng  of  paper  and  metal  would  be  turned 


36 


TOPICS  OF  THE  TIMES, 


into  producers  of  wealth.  Instead  of  money  a  ''credit- 
card  "  would  be  issued  to  each  citizen,  which  would  give 
him  the  privilege  of  drawing  so  much  goods  from  the  com- 
mon fund.  The  dollar,  which  is  now  well  nigh  almighty, 
would  thus  become  an  abstract  algebraical  sign,  like  X,  to 
indicate  how  many  articles  of  consumption  each  one  should 
be  entided  to,  and  all  would  get  the  same  amount,  whether 
he  were  the  president  or  a  hotel  waiter.  There  is  said  to 
exist  a  tribe  in  Africa  which  has  a  species  of  "abstract 
money,"  i.e.,  no  money  at  all  but  an  imaginary  coinage. 
They  estimate  the  value  of  things  by  what  is  called  a 
"  macute."  If,  for  instance,  two  persons  want  to  exchange 
a  cow  and  a  horse,  they  estimate  each  at  so  many  *'ma- 
cutes"  and  exchange,  and  if  they  be  of  unequal  value,  the 
party  who  gets  the  more  valuable  article  stands  debtor  to 
the  other  so  many  "  macutes"  which  he  pays,  of  course, 
with  some  other  articles  his  creditor  may  need.  It  is  well 
known  that  in  colonial  times  tobacco  was  used  as  a  circu- 
lating medium,  which  took  the  place  of  money.  So  that 
the  god  Mammon  turns  out  to  be  an  idol  resting  on  feet 
of  clay  which  may  be  easily,  and  perhaps  advantageously 
overthrown. 

Another  business  that  would  be  suppressed  by  being 
rendered  unnecessary  under  the  Nationalistic  scheme 
would  be  life  insurance.  Each  one  would  be  provided  for 
as  he  came  into  existence,  and  during  his  sojourn  on  earth, 
and,  therefore,  no  husband  need  fear  that  his  wife  and 
children  would  suffer  after  his  death. 

State-Government,  too— that  darling  of  the  Democrat 
and  bugbear  of  the  Republican — would  be  abolished, 
although  municipal  or  city  and  town  bureaus  and  councils 
would  be  necessary.  The  schools  and  colleges,  of  course, 
would  all  be  nationalized,  and  every  dining-room  would 
be  made  public,  and  would  be  served  by  persons 
taken  from  the  class  of  unskilled  laborers.  These  ser- 
vants would  not  be  looked  down  upon,  as  they  often 
are  now,  as  persons  belonging  to  the  "lower  classes," 
because  every  one,  even  the  president  himself,  would 
have  to  pass  through  this  or  a  similar  grade  of  service. 
What  a  blessing  to  housekeepers  some  such  arrangement 
would  be!  The  bane  of  housekeeping  is  "domestic 
service,"  and  "  girls  "  are  becoming  more  and  more 
averse  to  doing  such  service,  partly  no  doubt  because  it  is 


AN  EXPOSITION  OF  NATIONALISM,  ^y 

considered  rather  degrading.  The  only  possible  solution 
of  this  important  phase  of  the  social  problem  lies  in  the 
adoption  of  some  method  which  will  elevate  the  status  of 
the  domestic.  In  certain  cases  even  now  a  number  of 
families  club  together  and  employ  a  caterer,  and  have 
their  meals  prepared  in  a  common  kitchen.  Perhaps 
we  must  have  a  bureau  of  some  sort  which  will  furnish 
other  domestic  services,  house-cleaning,  etc.,  whose  em- 
ployes will  be  no  more  looked  down  upon  than  a  sales- 
man in  a  store  or  a  clerk  in  an  ofitice.  At  any  rate,  unless 
something  be  done  to  elevate  the  social  status  of  the 
domestic,  a  ''home"  may  become  impossible,  unless, 
indeed,  the  madam  and  the  daughters  (if  there  be  any) 
determine  to  do  the  work  themselves. 

Another  great  blessing  which  the  Socialistic  programme 
promises  is  the  abolition  of  the  legal  profession.  Lawyers 
would  become  useless,  because  there  would  be  no  criminals 
to  try  and  imprison ;  but,  of  course,  clergymen  and 
physicians  would  remain  indispensable  !  The  one  would 
still  be  needed  to  expound  mental,  moral  and  spiritual 
truths,  the  other  to  heal  disease  ;  and  perhaps  an  occasional 
trial  of  some  recalcitrant  fellow  might  be  necessary,  and  so 
a/ew  lawyers  might  be  allowed  to  exist !  In  this  sketch 
of  some  of  the  details  of  the  Nationalists'  programme,  I 
have  followed  Mr.  Bellamy  not  because  his  outline  is  con- 
sidered final  by  his  disciples,  but  simply  for  the  sake  of 
illustrating  the  alleged  workings  of  the  scheme.  It  must 
not  be  thought  for  a  moment  that  the  details  above  given, 
or  laid  down  in  "Looking  Backward,"  are  of  the  essence 
of  Socialism — are  necessary  parts  of  it.  On  the  contrary, 
they  may  never  be  .realized,  and  yet  Socialism  may  be- 
come a  fact.  The  essential  features  of  this  social  philos- 
ophy are  indicated  in  the  five  points  stated,  and  details 
must  be  left  to  be  worked  out  by  time  and  circumstances. 
Now,  it  is  commonly  believed  by  those  who  get  a  general 
idea  of  Socialism  that  it  is  an  altogether  visionary  scheme; 
it  is  a  pretty  theory,  but  can  never  be  made  to  work  in 
practice.  On  the  contrary,  say  the  Socialists,  Socialism  is 
not  only  practicable  but  is  absolutely  necessary.  Society 
has  passed  through  many  stages,  and  is  now  about  to 
enter  upon  the  highest  of  all — the  Socialistic  stage.  The 
evolution  has  been  as  follows  :  ist — There  was  the  Hunt- 
ing Period,  when  men  lived  chiefly  on  products  of  the 


38 


TOPICS  OF  THE  TIMES. 


chase  ;  2d — this  was  followed  by  and  gradually  merged 
into  the  Pastoral  Period,  when  the  herding  of  flocks  as 
Abraham  and  Lot  did,  and  as  the  modern  Arabs  do,  was 
the  chief  employment  and  means  of  living.  Then  came 
the  agricultural  age,  when  the  tillmg  of  the  soil  began, 
and  civilization  become  possible.  **In  Ancient  Greece 
and  Rome  the  village  communities  grew  and  were  con- 
solidated into  the  cities  so  famous  in  history,  the  economic 
basis  of  which  on  the  whole  was  slavery. 

"The  Roman  empire,  which  had  absorbed  the  entire 
ancient  world,  was  overthrown  in  western  Europe  by 
Teutonic  tribes,  with  whom  the  agricultural  stage  passed 
into  the  feudal  system.  The  land  was  held  by  a  feudal 
tenure,  that  is,  was  associated  with  great  public  burdens 
and  functions,  such  as  military  service.  The  labor  was 
generally  that  of  serfs,  bound  to  the  lords. 

**The  feudal  system,  which  to  people  looking  back 
appears  a  scene  of  confusion  and  internal  strife,  was  as 
compared  with  the  condition  of  things  preceding  it  among 
the  Teutonic  nations,  really  a  process  of  consolidation  and 
building  up.  Toward  the  end  of  the  fifteenth  century,  the 
feudal  states  underwent  a  further  process  of  consolidation 
into  a  centralized  state.  The  centralized  state  was  represent- 
ed in  England  by  the  personal  monarchy  of  the  Tudor 
Period,  but  it  attained  to  its  completest  development  in 
the  absolute  monarchy  of  Louis  XIV.  of  France. 

"The  transformation  of  the  medieval  society  resting  on 
Feudalism  and  Catholicism  into  the  modern  system  was  in 
most  countries  a  long  and  painful  process.  The  downfall  of 
the  feudal  system  began  in  England  so  early  as  the  middle 
of  the  fourteenth  century  ;  and  even. yet  we  are  burdened 
with  survivals  of  it,  in  such  institutions  as  the  House  of 
Lords.  As  regards  Europe  generally,  it  is  chiefly  since  the 
French  Revolution  of  1789  that  the  absolute  monarchy  has 
been  more  or  less  effectively  displaced  by  constitutional 
government  with  parliaments  consisting  of  representatives 
chosen  by  the  people.  Li  economics  the  period  is  marked 
by  private  property  in  land  superseding  the  feudal  tenure, 
by  competitive  industry  and  free  labor,  free,  competitive 
individualism. 

"Now  it  is  the  contention  of  Socialism  that,  in  the 
evolution  of  society,  a  period  has  come  requiring  the 
transition  into  a  higher  and  wider  form  of  organization, 


AN  EXPOSITION  OF  NA  TIONALISM.  3  9 

economic,  social,  and  political ;  a  society  embodying  a 
nobler  ethical  ideal,  and  free  democracy  with  a  fit  and 
suitable  industrial  system  ;  a  form  of  society  which  will 
better  adapt  the  mechanical  achievements  of  the  industrial 
revolution  to  the  services  of  man,  for  the  wider  extension 
of  freedom,  happiness,  and  culture.  Such  a  form  of  in- 
dustrial organization,  suited  to  a  higher  ethical  and  political 
stage  of  human  advancement.  Socialism  claims  to  be."* 

The  Socialists  claim  that  there  are  causes  now  at  work  in 
the  industrial  world  that  will  necessarily  produce  a  Social- 
istic system  :  First  of  all,  says  Prof.  Kirkup,  of  Edinburgh, 
Scotland  :  "The  organization  and  concentration  of  produc- 
tion in  large  factories,  with  an  improved  mechanical  power 
and  a  large  number  of  wage  workers,  is  one  sign  of  the 
Socialistic  tendency  of  things.  Let  such  organizations  as 
the  Standard  Oil  Company  and  the  Western  Union  Tele- 
graph Company,  for  instance,  continue,  as  they  probably 
will  continue,  to  grow  and  increase  in  number,  and  it  will 
not  be  very  long  before  they  will  come  under  public  con- 
trol, and  the  whole  nation  may  be  organized  as  the  one 
great  business  corporation  in  which  all  other  corporations 
will  have  been  absorbed.  At  any  rate,"  says  Prof.  Kirkup, 
**  Socialists  regard  these  colossal  corporations,  and  the 
wealthy  bosses  that  direct  them,  as  the  greatest  pioneers 
of  their  cause.  By  concentrating  the  economic  functions 
of  the  country  into  large  masses,  they  are  simply  helping 
forward  the  Socialistic  movement.  Their  mission  is  to 
displace  the  smaller  capitalists,  but  they  will  thereby 
eventually   undermine  capitalism  altogether." 

Second  :  In  proportion  as  these  companies  grow,  the 
active  and  effective  management  must  be  entrusted  to  paid 
officials,  and  the  capitalist  ceases  to  be  the  real  controller 
of  industry  :  he  tends  to  become  a  receiver  of  interest  and 
dividends,  while  managers,  clerks  and  secretaries  do  the 
work.  It  is  obvious  how  the  development  of  such  a  ten- 
dency will  facilitate  the  transference  of  the  great  industries 
to  social  control.  For  instance,  with  regard  to  the  rail- 
way system,  if  it  should  appear  expedient  to  place  it  un- 
der collective  management  the  State  would  find  a  staff  of 
officials,  and  employes  ready  to  its  hand.  The  present 
organization,  modified  chiefly  in  the  direction  of  further 

*Prof.  Thos.  Kirkup,  "Inquiry  into  Socialism,"  pp.  90-93, 


40  TOPICS  OF  THE  TIMES. 

centralization  and  greater  economy,  would  be  sufficient. 

Thus,  it  is  believed,  the  capitalist  rulers  of  the  great  in- 
dustrial companies  will  be  displaced,  and  the  people  will 
^Qi  control. 

Third  :  The  rapid  growth  of  democracy,  say  the  Social- 
ists, is  perhaps  the  most  conclusive  proof  that  society  is 
tending  towards  the  Socialistic  order.  This  beginning 
with  the  American  and  French  Revolutions  of  the  last  cen- 
tury has  gone  forward  so  swiftly,  especially  in  this 
country,  that  it  seems  not  unreasonable  to  believe  that, 
ere  the  close  of  the  next  century,  we  will  have  a  govern- 
ment "of  the  people,  by  the  people,  and  for  the  people," 
in  a  deeper  and  truer  sense  than  most  of  us  imagine. 

Fourth  :  State  and  Municipal  Socialism  is  being  rapidly 
developed  in  Germany,  France,  and  England,  and  is  des- 
tined to  send  its  waves  over  this  country.  The  reform 
bills  beginning  in  1802,  such  as  factory  acts,  mining  acts, 
municipal  corporation  acts,  public  health  acts,  shop-hours 
regulation  acts,  etc.,  indicate  the  progress  of  the  Social- 
istic sentiment  in  England. 

''  Experience  has  proved  that  such  local  rule  may  with 
advantage  be  extended  in  many  directions.  Gas,  water, 
parks  and  means  of  recreation,  better  housing  for  the 
poor,  the  interest  of  public  health,  and  to  a  large  degree 
education,  are  all  now  regarded  as  belonging  to  the  legit- 
imate sphere  of  local  government.  By  and  by  we  may 
see  local  control  effectively  extended  to  building  sites  and 
the  drink  question,  and  this  state  and  municipal  Socialism, 
it  is  said,  is  liable  to  extend  more  and  more  as  the  people 
attain  to  a  clearer  consciousness  of  their  rights  and  a 
more  effective  organization."* 

**  The  combinations,  trusts  and  syndicates  of  which  the 
people  at  present  complain,"  says  the  Nationalists'  declara- 
tion of  principles,  ''demonstrate  the  practicability  of  our 
basic  principle  of  association.  We  merely  wish  to  push 
this  principle  a  little  further,  and  have  all  industries 
operated  in  the  interest  of  all  by  the  Nation,  the  people 
organized." 

This  would,  of  course,  abolish  all  the  evils  of  private 
corporations,  which  are  managed  in  the  interest  of  a  few 
persons  at  the  expense  of  the  many,  and  at  the  same  time 

♦See  "Kirkup's  Inquiry, " /^jjm. 


AN  EXPOSITION  OF  NA  TIONALISM.  4 1 

it  would  preserve  its  great  (and  commendable)  principle  of 
association  and  co-operation. 

Now  this  statement  of  Socialism  is  open  to  fewer  objec- 
tions than  mig-ht  at  first  sight  seem.  First,  it  is  not  an  ideal, 
visionary  scheme,  for  it  proposes  to  recognize  existing  facts 
and  conditions  and  follow  the  natural  development  of  things. 
No  sudden  or  violent  revolution  of  the  industrial  is  pro- 
posed. (2. )  It  would  not  be  an  unwieldy  machine,  for  other 
governments  manage,  most  effectively,  their  railroads,  tele- 
graphs, telephones,  etc.,  and  the  management  of  such  enor- 
mous corporations  as  the  Western  Union  Telegraph  Com- 
pany would  have  seemed  fifty  years  ago  quite  as  impossible 
as  the  national  control  of  industries,  such  as  Socialism  pro- 
poses. (3.)  The  objection  that  the  governmental  manage- 
ment of  railroads,  etc.,  would  produce  political  corruption 
is  not  so  formidable  as  many  fancy,  since  such  a  result 
has  not  been  realized  in  Europe,  and  the  elevation  of 
public  sentiment  and  public  morals  which  Socialism  pro- 
poses would  effectually  destroy  political  corruption.  This, 
of  course,  sounds  (juite  Utopian  to  any  one  familiar  with 
practical  politics.  But  a  hundred  years  ago  in  England  it 
would  have  been  impossible  to  have  deposed  the  leader  of 
a  great  parliamentary  party  for  private  immorality,  as  hap- 
pened in  the  celebrated  Parnell-O'Shea  case.  May  we  not 
rationally  believe  that  a  half  century  hence  as  great  an 
improvement  in  public  morals  will  have  been  brought 
about  in  our  country } 

At  any  rate,  three  of  the  principles  of  Socialism  may  be 
and  are  accepted — viz.  :  its  principle  of  human  brotherhood, 
of  association  instead  of  competition  in  business,  and  of  the 
economic  function  of  the  State.  Whether  we  are  Socialists 
or  not  we  believe  in  these  great  principles,  at  least  profess- 
edly and  to  a  great  extent.  We  acknowledge  our  fraternal 
relation  to  the  so-called  'Mower  classes''  by  the  estab- 
lishment and  support  of  great,  organized  charities.  It 
would  be  much  more  rational  and  beneficial  to  all  con- 
cerned if  instead  of  doling  out  ''alms,"  and  thus  keeping 
the  poor  always  with  us,  we  would  spend  the  money  and 
energies  thus  consumed  in  securing  work  for  the  unem- 
ployed and  developing  in  them  a  spirit  of  self-dependence. 
Our  great  trusts,  syndicates,  labor  organizations,  and  vari- 
ous co-opetative  movements  attest  our  belief  in  the  efficacy 
of  the  principle  of  association,  while  the  cries  of  starving 


42  TOPICS  OF  THE  TIMES. 

millions  and  the  wails  of  the  '*  small  employers"  that  are 
crushed  in  the  great  struggle  for  life  condemn  as  brutal 
and  diabolical  the  principle  of '*  competition,"  show  that 
' '  competition  is  ?iol  the  life  of  trade." 

Finally,  all  who  believe  in  any  sort  of  "  tariff  legislation  "' 
admit  that  the  State  has  an  economic  function.  Indeed, 
as  wars  become  less  and  less  frequent,  as  the  intellectual, 
moral,  and  religious  life  of  the  country  advances,  as  the 
enormous  resources  of  the  land  are  developed,  in  short,  as 
men  become  more  human  and  less  brutal,  the  industrial 
pursuits  of  the  country  must  claim  more  and  more  the 
attention  of  the  people,  and  become  the  chief  concern  of 
the  government.  While  I  would  not  be  set  down  as  a 
Socialist,  for  many  of  the  features  of  Socialism  may  prove 
'mpracticable,  perhaps  unjust, — yet  I  recognize  its  truths 
as  against  Anarchism.  It  seems  to  me  that  it  will  ulti- 
mately solve  the  great  question  as  to  the  relation  between 
monopolistic  and  individualistic  enterprises,  and  this  is 
one  of  the  most  perplexing  problems  before  us.  Professor 
Richard  T.  Ely  of  the  Johns  Hopkins  University,  Baltimore, 
has  made  suggestions  on  the  subject  that  are  full  of  wisdom. 
He  makes  a  distinction  between  **  natural  monopolies" 
and  *'  artificial  monopolies" — monopolies  that  are  made  by 
law  and  businesses  that  are  monopolies  by  their  very  nature. 
Railroads,  telegraphs,  telephones,  gas  and  waterworks,  etc., 
are  said  to  be  "natural  monopolies,"  and  their  public 
management  is  therefore  advocated  by  the  professor,  who 
has  accordingly  been  called  a  Socialist.  He  denies  the 
accusation,  however,  and  claims  that  he  simply  believes 
that  some  sorts  of  business  should  be  controlled  by  the 
State,  while  others  should  be  left  to  individual  enterprise. 
Apart  from  his  own  economic  classification,  the  proposition 
that  certain  businesses,  being  "natural  monopolies,"  can 
be  managed  better  by  the  State  than  by  private  corporations 
deserves  most  careful  consideration,  regardless  of  the  ques- 
tion whether  it  is  of  a  Socialistic  nature  or  not. 

While  I  thus  recognize  the  great  truths  in  Socialism,  I 
can  also  see  that  the  enormous  increase  of  governmental 
interference  in  business  that  it  proposes  may  endanger 
and  curtail  the  rightful  liberty  of  the  individual,  and  there- 
fore we  should  not  be  hasty  in  the  adoption  of  its  proposed 
measures.  The  ideal  society  is,  of  course,  that  in  which 
every  mdividual  will  have  an  equal  opportunity  with  every 


AN  EXPOSITION  OF  NATIONALISM. 


43 


other  to  develop  his  manhood,  and  perhaps  the  conflict 
between  Socialism  and  Individualism  may  result  in  at  least 
an  approximation  to  this  ideal,  but  its  realization  cannot 
be  forced.  The  grand  sine  qua  non  of  such  a  state  of  things 
is  the  mental,  moral  and  manual  education  of  the  people, 
and  this  must  be  the  result  of  ages  of  work.  Meanwhile, 
millions  in  our  great  city  are  starving  and  freezing  and 
demand  our  immediate  attention  and  help,  and  no  theory 
must  prevent  us  from  doing  all  we  can  for  the  betterment 
of  our  fellow  beings.  While  Socialists,  Anarchists,  George- 
men,  and  all  other  social  reformers  may  advocate  their 
peculiar  theories  in  their  lectures,  papers,  books,  etc.,  yet 
it  seems  to  me  most  unfortunate  that  they  cannot  find 
some  basis  of  co-operation  for  the  relief  of  the  poor  from 
present  distress.  Granted,  for  the  sake  of  argument,  that 
the  ideal  of  Socialism  or  Individualism  is  the  Christian  ideal, 
graiited  that  the  adoption  of  the  Single  Tax  on  land  might 
produce  immense  benefits,  yet  while  the  people  are  being; 
educated  up  to  the  adoption  of  any  of  these  schemes,  mil- 
lions are  dying  for  want  of  bread  and  clothing,  and  it  is  to 
be  feared  that  many  stand  aloof  from  movements  to  afford 
immediate  relief  to  these  sufferers,  because  they  do  not 
exactly  fall  in  with  their  ideas  of  social  reform. 

I  remember  a  tramp  through  the  slums  of  New  York 
City  with  a  friend  of  mine  who  had  a  scheme  (perhaps  a 
wise  one)  of  social  regeneration,  and  he  strongly  denounced 
the  Church  and  private  societies,  and  individuals,  for  at- 
tempting to  relieve  the  paupers  inhabiting  those  dens ;  but 
when  I  asked  whether  he  would  endorse  their  action,  if 
they  were  to  devote  their  energies  and  funds  to  the  propa 
gation  of  his  views  and  plans,  he  admitted  that  he  would. 
As  I  then  and  there  looked  around  upon  the  misery  and 
degradation  of  thousands,  and  listened  to  the  words  of  my 
good  friend,  I  was  more  strongly  impressed  than  ever  with 
the  thought  that  some  theories  of  social  reform  may  really 
impede  the  progress  of  the  good  work,  and  hence  if  some 
plan,  whether  it  be  General  Booth's  or  some  other,  could 
be  adopted  for  the  immediate  relief  of  the  poor — a  plan 
which  would  gain  the  support  of  all,  or  nearly  all  social 
reformers,  while  allowing  them  to  ventilate  their  peculiar 
opinions,  it  would  be  a  great  blessing  to  mankind,  espe- 
cially to  the  submerged  portion. 


44  TOPICS  OF  THE  TIMES, 

III. 

TRUTHS    AND    ERRORS    OF    HENRY    GEORGe's  VIEWS. 

Henry  George  and  his  views  are  so  well  known,  and 
their  influence  has  been  so  great  upon  the  popular  mind, 
in  one  way  or  another,  that  it  is  now  time  to  ask.  What 
place  in  economic  history  and  philosophy  are  they  destined 
to  hold  ?  What  are  the  truths  in  Mr.  George's  philosophy 
which  will  Hve,  and  what  are  the  errors  that  must  die?  It 
is  commonly  supposed  that  his  Land  Theory  is  his  only 
theory,  but  while  certain  opinions  on  this  subject,  more  or 
less  peculiar  to  him,  have  made  him  famous,  this  is  by  no 
means  his  only  theory  ;  indeed  his  greatest  service  to 
economics  may  be  found  rather  in  his  lucid,  forcible  and 
eloquent  presentation  and  advocacy  of  opinions  held  by 
other  economists.  His  Land  Theory  may  never  be  real- 
ized, and  yet  he  may  always  hold  a  prominent  position 
among  social  and  economic   reformers  and  philosophers. 

Frederick  Robertson  says  :  ''There  are  two  sorts  of  men 
who  exercise  influence.  The  first  are  those  who  perpetu- 
ate their  own  opinions,  bequeath  their  own  names,  form  a 
sect,  gather  a  party  round  them  who  speak  their  words  and 
believe  their  beliefs.  This  is  the  influence  most  aimed  at 
and  most  loved.  The  second  class  is  composed  of  those 
who  stir  up  faith,  conscience,  thought,  to  do  their  own 
work.  They  are  not  anxious  that  those  they  teach  should 
think  as  they  do,  .but  that  they  should  tliiiik  ;  nor  that  they 
should  take  this  or  that  rule  of  right  and  wrong,  but  that 
they  should  be  conscientious  ;  nor  that  they  should  adopt 
their  own  views  of  God,  but  that  faith  in  God  should  be 
roused  in  earnest.  Such  men  propagate  not  many  views  ; 
but  they  propagate  hfe  itself  in  inquiring  minds  and  ear- 
nest hearts." 

Now,  Mr.  George  enjoys  the  enviable  distinction  of  be- 
longing to  both  these  classes  of  men.  He  has  established 
a  "George  Theory  "  and  a  "  George  School  of  Thought," 
but  I  think  that  this  school  is  destined  to  be  absorbed  by 
other,  and  perhaps  profounder,  economic  schools  in  the 
future ;  but,  even  so,  it  will  be  Mr.  George's  lasting  honor 
that,  more  than  any  other  one  man  of  his  time,  he  has  made 
the  great  mass  of  men  think  on  economic  subjects ;  nay, 


HENRY  GEORGE'S  VIEWS, 


45 


more,  he^has  called  in  question  long  established  and  deeply- 
rooted  opinions,  and  has  made  men  think  deeply — ex- 
amine the  very  foundations  of  society  and  civilization. 
Hence  I  say,  if  his  Land  Theory  should  never  be  fully 
realized  his  work  may  produce  immense  results. 

First : — Among  the  truths  he  advocates  is  his  view  of 
Trade.  He  is  a  radical  Free  Trader.  Indeed,  all  sen- 
sible men  are  Free  Traders,  or,  rather,  I  should  say,  all 
Free  Traders  are  sensible  men.  Mr.  George's  book  on 
''Protection  and  Free  Trade  "  is  a  thorough  discussion  of 
this  important  subject,  and  to  my  mind  is  perfectly  un- 
answerable. It  considers  and  refutes  all  the  fallacies  and 
common  arguments  of  protectionists.  First,  he  answers 
the  popular,  silly  remark  that  ' '  free  trade  is  right  in  theory 
but  wrong  in  practice,"  by  saying  "a  theory  that  will  not 
agree  with  facts  must  be  false.  Its  agreement  with  facts,  its 
practicability,  is  all  that  makes  it  right,  and  therefore  it  is  a 
contradiction  in  terms  to  say  that  an  opinion  is  right  in 
theory  but  wrong  in  practice."  The  theory  of  free  trade 
may  be  carried  to  the  point  of  ideal  perfection,  for  to  se- 
cure free  trade  we  have  only  to  abolish  restrictions,  but  to 
carry  the  theory  of  protection  into  practice  some  articles 
must  be  taxed  and  others  left  untaxed,  and  as  to  the  arti- 
cles taxed  different  rates  of  duty  must  be  imposed,  and 
this  leads  to  endless  wrangling  in  Congress  and  great  dis- 
satisfaction with  any  tariff  bill  that  may  be  enacted.  But  of 
course  those  who  say  that  free  trade  is  right  in  theory  but 
wrong  in  practice  mean  that  it  is  right  from  a  moral  stand- 
point but  wrong  from  a  business  point  of  view  ;  that  is,  it 
will  not  bring  the  advantages  to  one  class  of  traders  that 
protection  will.  To  whichitmay  be  replied  :  (ist) — What 
is  morally  right  cannot  be  politically  or  industrially  wrong, 
however  much  it  may  seem  to  be ;  (2d) — This  is  a  beg- 
ging of  the  whole  question,  for  the  very  point  to  be  proved 
is  whether  free  trade  or  protection  will  benefit  all  parties 
more  than  protection. 

Second : — iNIr.  George  answers  the  contention,  even 
now  made  by  some  eminent  protectionists,  that  "  the 
foreigner,  not  the  consumer,  pays  the  tax  on  imported 
goods."  When  the  McKinley  Tariff  Bill  of  1890  was  passed, 
its  framer,  in  a  public  speech  at  his  home,  made  this  fal- 
lacious statement.  Mr.  George  admits  that  there  are  two 
cases  where  the  foreigner  may  have  to  pay  the  tax  :  First, 


46  TOPICS  OF  THE  TIMES, 

*'an  mport  duty  on  a  commodity  of  which  the  production 
is  a  closely  controlled  foreign  monopoly  may  in  some  cases 
fall  in  part  or  in  whole  upon  the  foreign  producer."  He 
may  prefer  to  reduce  the  profit  on  what  he  sells  to  this  country 
rather  than  lose  the  market.  Second,  "  A  Canadian  farmer 
so  situated  that  the  only  market  in  which  he  can  conve- 
niently sell  his  wheat  is  on  the  American  side  "  might  prefer 
to  pay  the  duty  to  shipping  it  at  a  greater  cost  to  some 
Canadian  market.  But  how  rare,  comparatively,  are  such 
monopolies  and  situations  ?  These  are  mere  exceptions 
which  prove  the  rule  that  the  consumer,  not  the  foreign 
producer,  pays  the  tax.  A  simple  bit  of  experience  proves 
this  contention.  A  book  which  would  cost  me  fifteen 
dollars  in  England  has  cost  me  twenty-five  dollars  in  New 
York,  simply  because  of  tariff  duties,  and  so  in  every  case. 
The  man  who  wears  a  "protected"  hat,  made  in  Paris, 
for  instance,  pays  more  for  it  than  he  would  have  to  pay 
for  a  New  York  hat  made  of  the  same  material,  because  of 
tariff  duties  ;  or  rather  he  has  to  pay  more  for  either  hat 
because  of  the  tariff,  for  the  New  York  manufacturer  adds 
the  duty  to  his  hat,  although  he  pays  no  duty  on  its 
materials,  and  this  is  the  very  object  of  the  tariff  tax. 
'*  The  possibility  that  exceptional  duties  may  in  part  or  in 
whole  fall  on  foreign  producers,  instead  of  domestic  con- 
sumers, has  in  it  even  for  those  who  would  gladly  tax 
'foreigners'  no  shadow  of  recommendation  for  protection. 
For  the  cases  in  which  an  import  duty  falls  on  foreign  pro- 
ducers, are  cases  in  which  it  can  afford  no  encouragement 
to  home  producers.  An  import  duty  can  only  fall  on  foreign 
producers  when  its  payment  does  not  add  to  price  ;  while 
the  only  possible  way  an  import  duty  can  encourage  home 
producers  is  by  adding  to  price,"  and  thus  increasing  their 
profits.  To  plain,  moral,  and  common  sense  the  idea  of 
taxing  a  "foreigner  "  just  because  he  is  a  foreigner,  in  order 
to  increase  our  revenues,  is  repulsive.  It  is  really  a  species 
of  selfishness  ;  it  is  robbing  our  neighbor,  instead  of  doing 
to  him  as  we  would  be  done  by.  There  is  no  more  reason 
why  nations  should  be  governed  by  such  a  rule  of  action, 
than  there  is  why  individuals  of  the  same  state  should 
adopt  it.  There  is  no  reason  why  free  trade  between  New 
York  State  and  Virginia  should  be  allowed,  and  free  trade 
between  England  and  the  United  States  should  be  pro- 
hibited ;  for  an  exchange  of  products    will  take  place  be- 


HENRY  GEORGE'S  VIEWS.  47 

tween  nations  as  between  individuals,  only  when  it  is 
mutually  advantageous,  and  why  should  such  an  exchange 
be  taxed  or  prohibited  by  the  government?  "To  raise 
revenue,"  say  the  advocates  of  a  low  tariff,  but  even  this, 
is  not  the  best  method  of  raising  revenue,  while  a  pro- 
tective tariff,  if  it  protects  the  home  producer  by  excluding 
foreign  products,  does  not  increase  the  revenue ;  no 
revenue,  is  paid,  because  no  goods  are  imported,  but 
the  domestic  producer's  bank  account  is  increased  and  the 
poor  consumer  is  consumed. 

Third  : — Mr.  George  explodes  *'  the  infant  industry  argu- 
ment," as  well  as  the  chief  contention  of  the  protectionists 
that  a  protective  tariff  is  necessary  to  "build  up  home 
manufactures. "  The  "  infant  industry  "  argument,  as  Prof. 
Taussig,  in  his  admirable  "  Tariff  History  of  the  United 
States,"  has  shown,  used  to  be  more  powerful  and  popular 
than  it  now  is,  for  "the  infants"  have  long  since  grown 
gray-headed  and  are  still  crying  for  "protection  "  and 
"fostering."  He  also  shows  that  "little  if  anything  was 
gained  by  the  protection  which  the  United  States  maintained 
in  the  first  part  of  this  century."  The  great  manufactures 
that  grew  up  with  protection  owed  their  growth  mainly  to 
other  causes — natural  advantages,  introduction  of  improved 
machinery,  good  markets,  etc.  Mr.  George  admits  that 
"as  an  abstract  proposition  there  may  be  industries  to 
which  temporary  encouragement  might  be  profitably  ex- 
tended. "  But  such  encouragement,  he  thinks,  can  be  better 
given  in  the  way  of  bounties  than  by  protective  tariffs. 
Moreover,  there  are  insuperable  difficulties  in  the  way  of 
discovering  what  industries  would  repay  encouragement. 
All  experience  shows  that  the  policy  of  encouragement, 
once  begun,  leads  to  a  scramble  in  which  the  strong,  not 
the  weak,  the  unscrupulous,  not  the  deserving,  succeed. 
What  are  really  infant  industries  have  no  more  chance  in 
the  struggle  for  governmental  encouragement  than  infant 
pigs  have  with  full-grown  swine  about  a  meal-tub.  On  the 
whole,  the  ability  of  any  industry  to  establish  and  sustain 
itself  in  a  free  field  is  the  measure  of  its  public  utility,  and 
that  "struggle  for  existence"  which  drives  out  unprofitable 
industries  is  the  best  means  of  determining  what  industries 
are  needed  under  existing  conditions  and  what  are  not. 
The  only  safe  course  is  to  give  all  a  fair  field  and  no  favor. 
In  considering  the  protectionists'  plea  that  their  object  is 


48  TOPICS  OF  THE  TIMES. 

not  the  encouragement  of  infant  industries  but  the  en- 
couragement of  all  home  industry,  he  makes  the  following 
points  :  (ist) — The  vast  majority  of  our  industries  need 
no  protection  and  can  get  none.  "Duties  upon  com- 
modities entirely  produced  at  home  can  of  course,  have  no 
effect  in  encouraging  home  industries,"  since  no  such  com- 
modities would  be  imported.  "It  is  only  when  imposed 
upon  commodities,  partly  imported  and  partly  produced 
at  home,  or  entirely  imported,  yet  capable  of  being  pro- 
duced at  home,  that  duties  can  in  any  way  encourage  an 
industry.  No  tariff  which  the  United  States  imposed  could, 
for  instance,  encourage  the  growth  of  grain  or  cotton,  the 
raising  of  cattle,  the  production  of  coal  oil  or  the  mining 
of  gold  or  silver  ;  for  instead  of  importing  these  things 
w^e  not  only  supply  ourselves  but  have  a  surplus  which 
we  export."  The  industries  that  cannot  be  protected 
are  by  far  the  larger  part  of  our  industries,  and  yet  pro- 
tectionists tell  us  that  protection  fosters  industry.  They 
urge  that  the  tariff  encourages  the  protected  industries,  and 
then  the  protected  industries  encourage  unprotected  indus- 
tries ;  protection  builds  up  the  factory  and  the  iron  furnace, 
and  the  factory  and  iron  furnace  create  a  demand  for  the 
farmer's  products.  Mr.  George  cleverly  disposes  of  this 
plausible  argument  by  supposing  that  two  citizens  of 
a  town  should  propose  to  enrich  all  the  other  citizens 
by  collecting  from  each  of  them  a  tax  of  five  cents,  saying, 
"This  slight  tax  will  make  us  wealthy:  we  will  at  once 
enlarge  our  businesses,  improve  our  houses  and  grounds, 
set  up  carriages,  hire  servants,  give  parties,  and  buy 
much  more  freely  at  the  stores.  This  will  make  trade 
brisk  and  cause  a  greater  demand  for  labor  and  so  on." 
Who  would  listen  to  such  nonsense  t  Yet  this  is  the 
protectionist's  argument.  Protection  enriches  the  protected 
and  impoverishes  the  unprotected ;  it  enriches  a  few  at 
the  expense  of  the  many,  and  this  is  the  great  and  fatal 
objection  to  it. 

A  commonplace  idea  is  that  the  United  States  is  or  ought 
to  be  a  manufacturing  country,  but  some  of  the  ablest 
thinkers  I  know  among  the  protectionists  do  not  believe 
this.  Manufacturing  is  certainly  a  small  part  of  our  in- 
dustries now,  and  is  destined  to  be  for  some  time  to  come. 
Moreover,  if  we  have  not  power  and  resources  enough  to 
hold  our  own  against  other  countries  we  should  let  them  do 


HENRY  GEORGE'S  VIEWS.  45 

the  manufacturing  for  us,  just  as  individuals  do  what  each 
can  best  do.  Why  should  we  attempt  to  compete  with 
countries  which  have  natural  advantages  over  us  in  the 
production  of  certain  things?  Why  not  let  them  produce 
those  things,  and  devote  ourselves  to  the  production  of 
other  things  in  which  we  excel  and  which  we  may  ex- 
change for  those  things  ?  The  apphcation  of  this  simple, 
elementary  principle  in  international  trade  w^ould  pro- 
duce as  great  and  beneficial  results  to  all  parties  con- 
cerned as  it  does  in  the  dealings  of  individuals  with  one 
another.  One  of  the  favorite  objections  to  free  trade  urged 
by  protectionists  is  that  our  manufactures  cannot  compete 
with  European  manufactures  owing  to  the  higher  wages 
which  American  workingmen  demand  and  receive.  Mr. 
George  answers  this  objection  in  the  14th  chapter  of  his 
**  Protection  and  Free  Trade."  That  answer  is  twofold: 
(ist) — We  should  attempt  to  compete  with  Europe  only  in 
those  things  in  the  manufacture  of  which  we  have  natural 
advantages  over  her.  (2d) — High  wages  do  not  neces- 
sarily mean  high  cost  of  production.  On  the  contrary,  it  is 
a  well-known  fact  that  low  wages  mean  and  cause  high 
cost  of  production.  Southerners  know  that  slave  labor 
is  the  most  expensive  sort  of  labor,  and  the  cheap,  free 
negro  labor  is  even  more  expensive.  The  man  who  pays 
his  employes  good  wages  gets  more  and  better  work 
done.  Well  paid  workmen  as  a  rule  are  more  intelligent 
and  diligent,  and  those  who  employ  ''the  pauper  labor" 
of  Europe  know  how  inferior  it  is  to  our  well  paid  labor. 
It  should  be  remembered,  also,  that  such  poorly  paid  labor 
is  quite  as  easily  secured  in  this  country  as  in  Europe. 
Besides,  labor  is  only  one  factor  in  production,  and  it  is 
absurd  for  a  manufacturer  who  can  get  materials  superior 
to  those  used  in  European  manufactories,  who  can  sell 
his  goods  near  home,  while  the  foreign  producer  must  ship 
them  across  the  sea,  etc.,  it  is  absurd  to  attribute  to  one 
cause  effects  that  (if  they  should  be  realized)  ought  to  be 
attributed  to  many  causes.  It  is  absurd  to  consider  the 
American  manufacturer's  '' high  labor"  without  also  tak- 
ing into  the  account  its  superiority  to  ''the  pauper  labor 
of  Europe"  and  the  other  advantages  which  he  has  over 
his  foreign  brothers. 

Fourth  : — Mr.  George  demolishes  the  stronghold  of  pro- 
tectionism, viz.  ;  the  contention  that   "protection  benefits 

4 


50  TOPICS  OF  THE  TIMES. 

labor,"  How  can  protection  benefit  the  laborer  when  it  in- 
creases the  price  of  every  article  he  uses  ?  It  is  answered, 
''  while  it  increases  the  price  of  the  commodities  the 
working-  man  consumes,  it  also  increases  his  work  and  his 
wages."  How  does  it  do  this?  Where  does  it  do  this? 
We  have  just  seen  that  all  the  tariff  does  is  to  enrich  a 
few  at  the  expense  of  the  many — to  make  a  few  dozen 
millionaire  manufacturers  and  millions  of  paupers  who 
are  not  manufacturers.  Even  if  it  be 'granted  that  these 
few  wealthy  employers  are  enabled  by  the  tariff  to  work 
a  larger  force  of  men,  yet  they  draw  their  profits  from  un- 
protected farmers  and  others,  and. so  injure  the  great  mass 
of  men  while  filling  their  own"  pockets.  Furthermore, 
they  do  not  pay  better  wages  to  their  employes  because 
of  the  tariff.  In  some  cases  they  actually  pay  less  wages 
than  unprotected  employers,  and  they  frequently  import 
''the  pauper  labor"  of  Europe,  or  employ  it  when  it 
comes.  If  protectionists  are  friends  of  labor  why  don't 
they  protect  workingmen  from  this  evil?  Why  don't  they 
prohibit  the  importation  of  foreign  labor  instead  of  pro- 
hibiting the  importation  of  the  products  of  foreign  labor? 
They  leave  the  working  man  to  compete  with  this  labor 
and  protect  the  rich  employer  from  competition  which 
free  trade  with  Europe  would  bring  in  the  products  which 
the  employe  consumes,  and  yet  they  have  the  courage  to 
call  themselves  friends  of  the  working  man  !  If  they  are 
really  anxious  to  help  him,  why  don't  they,  in  addition  to 
prohibiting  or  judiciously  regulating  the  importation  of 
foreign  labor,  establish  and  encourage  industrial  schools 
which  will  make  his  labor  most  effective  and  valuable  ?  But 
no  !  They  protect  themselves  against  competition  with 
Europe  and  leave  the  poor  man  to  struggle  against  pauper- 
ism and  ignorance  and  oppression,  and  then  howl  "  pro- 
tection to  American  labor  !  "  How  long  will  working  men 
be  duped  and  hoodwinked  ?  Forever  ?  Or  will  they  rise  in 
their  might  and  destroy  their  enemy  and  oppressor?  Pro- 
tectionists tell  us  that  wages  in  this  country  are  higher  than 
they  are  in  England,  because  of  our  protective  tariff,  and 
England's  free  trade  policy.  They  overlook  two  facts  : 
(ist) — Wages  in  England  are  higher  than  they  are  on  the 
Continent  of  Europe  where  protection  prevails  :  (2d) — If 
wages  are  higher  in  this  country  so  are  the  prices  of  the 
things  the  laborer  consumes.     His  wages,  therefore,  are 


HENRY  GEORGE'S  VIEWS  5 1 

only  apparently,  not  actually  higher  than  the  English 
laborer's.  But  even  if  they  are  a  little  higher  here  than 
there,  this  is  due  not  to  our  ** robber  tariff "  but  to  our 
natural  advantages  over  England  and  Europe  generally. 
England  has  about  half  as  many  inhabitants  as  the  United 
States,  and  it  is  not  larger  than  one  of  our  great  states.  It 
were  a  shame,  indeed,  if,  with  a  country  capable  of  sup- 
porting a  thousand  millions  of  people  and  having  only 
sixty-five  millions,  with  such  magnificent  lands  as  the 
West  has,  and  the  enormous  resources  of  our  mines, 
etc.,  we  did  not  pay  better  wages,  on  the  whole,  than  a 
little  island  whose  inhabitants  have  hardly  elbow  room. 
"The  very  class,"  says  Mr.  George,  "that  profess  anxiety 
to  protect  American  labor  by  raising  the  price  of  what 
they  themselves  have  to  sell,  notoriously  buy  labor  as  cheap 
as  they  can  and  fiercely  oppose  any  combination  of  work- 
men to  raise  wages.  The  cry  of  '  protection  for  Ameri- 
can labor '  comes  most  vociferously  from  newspapers  that 
lie  under  the  ban  of  the  printers'  unions  ;  from  coal  and 
iron  lords  who,  importing  'pauper  labor' by  wholesale, 
have  bitterly  fought  every  effort  of  their  men  to  claim  any- 
thing like  decent  wages  ;  and  from  factory  owners  who 
claim  the  right  to  dictate  the  votes  of  their  men.  The 
whole  spirit  of  protection  is  against  the  right  of  labor." 

But  Mr.  George  shows  that  while  this  is  so — while  it  is 
easy  to  explode  the  fallacies  of  protection  and  prove  the 
advantages  of  free  trade — yet,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  men — 
working  men — will  vote  to  tax  themselves,  and  protection 
hold  its  own  in  spite  of  all  the  denunciation  of  it  by  free 
traders.  Why  is  this.?  "VitaHty  inheres  in  truth,  not  in 
error.  If  the  protective  theory  is  incongruous  with  the 
nature  of  things,  and  so  inconsistent  with  itself,  how  is  it 
that  after  so  many  years  of  discussion  it  still  obtained  such 
wide  and  strong  support.?  Free  traders  usually  attribute 
the  persistence  of  the  belief  in  protection  to  popular 
ignorance,  played  upon  by  special  interest." 

But  the  people  are  not  ignorant  of  this  subject.  Perhaps 
there  is  no  economic  question  which  the  ordinary  man  can 
discuss  with  more  force  and  intelligence  than  this.  Mr. 
George,  therefore,  rightly  urged  that  tariff  reform  or  aboli- 
tion is  only  one  step  in  the  industrial  revolution  necessary 
to  the  betterment  of  the  working  classes.  It  is,  indeed,  a 
most  important  and  necessary  part  of  the  general  reform, 


52 


TOPICS  OF  THE  TIMES. 


but  free  trade  by  itself  cannot  and  will  not  usher  in  the 
social  millennium.  We  must  have  something  more,  and 
until  we  get  that,  even  working  men,  especially  those  em- 
ployed in  protected  industries,  will  continue  to  be  duped 
by  the  protectionists'  appeal  to  "  facts"  as  against  '*  theo- 
ries." They  will  continue  to  say  :  "Free  trade  may  be  a 
good  thing  for  the  great  mass  of  men,  but  protection  will 
keep  this  factory  in  which  we  work  going,  and,  therefore, 
give  us  bread  and  butter,  and  we  cannot  sacrifice  that  for 
the  sake  of  an  unknown  majority."  It  will  be  in  vain  to 
urge  that  the  welfare  of  the  majority  involves  the  welfare  of 
the  said  factory.  The  workingman  "  can't  see  it ;  "  and  so 
Mr.  George  rightly  urges  that  along  with  the  abolition  of 
the  tariff  must  go  other  reforms  even  more  radical,  which 
will  give  free  trade  room  and  power  to  run  and  be 
glorified.  Free  trade  may  be  given  us,  but  if  other  industrial 
conditions  remain  to  destroy  produce  and  business,  what 
shall  we  have  to  trade .?  Our  author  thinks  that  in  order 
to  make  free  trade  in  products  of  labor  effective,  we 
must  have  free  trade  in  land ;  it  must  be  owned  by  the 
community  and  tax  on  all  other  sorts  of  property  must 
be  abolished.  We  shall  examine  this  contention  directly, 
but  meanwhile  remember  that  while  we  advocate  free 
trade,  we  do  not  consider  it  a  panacea  for  all  our  social 
and  industrial  ills. 


MR,  GEORGE'S  THEORY  OF  WAGES,  53 


IV. 

MR.  George's  theory  of  wages  contains  much  truth  and 

SOME    error. 

The  negative  part  of  his  theory  is  true  :  the  positive  part 
is  false.  He  rejects,  along  with  General  Francis  A.  Walker 
and  other  eminent  political  economists,  the  ''Wages-Fund 
Theory,"  which  teaches  that  wages  are  drawn  from  capital, 
— from  a  fund  which  is  laid  aside  for  this  purpose  by  the 
capitalist,  or  employers.  This  theory  was  advocated  by 
all  the  older  economists,  Adam  Smith,  the  "  Father  of  Po- 
litical Economy,"  Ricardo,  McCuUoch,  Mill,  etc.,  and  in 
the  present  day  it  has  been  supported  by  the  English  econo- 
mist, Prof.  Cairnes.  Great  confusion  of  thought  on  this 
subject  arises  from  the  fact  that  the  terms  "capital," 
"  profits  "  and  ''wages  "  are  not  clearly  defined  and  the  defi- 
nition strictly  adhered  to.  Mr.  George  accepts  Adam  Smith's 
simple  and  sensible  definition  of  capital,  viz.  :  "That  part 
of  a  man's  stock  which  he  expects  to  afford  him  a  revenue 
is  his  capital."  The  capital  of  a  boot  and  shoe  manufac- 
turer, for  instance,  consists  of  the  leather,  thread,  pegs, 
tools  used  in  making  the  boots  and  shoes  and  all  that  is 
made  in  their  manufacture  upon  which  the  manufacturer 
will  get  a  return.  The  labor  spent  in  making  them  is 
manifestly  different  from  the  stuff  used  in  making  them, 
and  the  return  for  the  labor  is,  therefore,  different  from 
the  return  for  the  material.  Suppose  a  pair  of  shoes  sells 
for  $5.00  and  that  the  leathe-r,  thread,  etc.,  cost  $2.00,  that 
the  shoemaker  gets  $2.00  for  his  work  and  that  an  average 
of  10  cents  per  pair  is  required  to  pay  the  rent  of  the  build- 
ing in  which  the  work  is  done,  the  manufacturer  or  em- 
ployer would  make  90  cents  on  the  pair  of  shoes.  Here 
we  see  the  distinction  between  capital,  rent,  wages  and 
profits.  Are  wages  drawn  from  capital .?  Obviously 
not;  but  labor  added  something  to  capital  for  which  it 
received  a  return,  and  capital  charged  more  for  the  pair  of 
shoes  than  was  spent  upon  them  by  capital,  land  and  labor 
combined,  and,  therefore,  made  a  profit.  We  are,  therefore, 
forced  to  hold  that  wages  are  not  drawn  from  capital,  but 


54  TOPICS  OF  THE  TIMES. 

from  the  products  of  labor.  This  is  perfectly  plain  where 
the  laborer  is  paid  in  kind.  If,  for  instance,  the  man- 
ufacturer pays  his  shoemaker  in  shoes,  he  would  have  to 
make  two  and  a  half  pair  of  shoes  in  order  to  get  one 
$5.00  pair  of  shoes,  and  in  this  case  none  could  deny  that 
labor  was  paid  by  itself  from  the  products  it  had  created. 
If  a  farmer  furnishes  the  land,  horses  and  seed  (or  "■  stock  ") 
and  a  tenant  furnishes  the  labor  and  gets  one  third  of  the 
produce,  it  is  clear  that  he  pays  himself  out  of  the  pro- 
ducts of  his  own  labor.  But  generally  the  employer  pays 
the  employe  in  money  before  the  products  are  sold,  and 
hence  it  seems  that  wages  are  drawn  from  capital  because 
they  are  paid  out  of  a  purse  which  was  filled  before  the 
products  of  the  labor  had  been  gathered  in.  Still,  it  must 
i)e  remembered  that  in  every  case  the  labor  is  given 
before  it  is  paid  for.  It  is,  therefore,  stored  up  in  the 
things  the  employer  owns,  and  a  return  for  it  will  be  real- 
ized whenever  he  sells  those  things.  His  money  is  a  mere 
equivalent  for  that  stored-up  labor.  He  pays  his  work- 
man $10  and  gets  five  pairs  of  shoea;  those  shoes  may  be 
put  away  in  his  storehouse  for  some  time  but  by-and-by 
they  will  be  sold  and  then  he  will  not  only  get  a  return 
for  his  capital  and  the  labor  he  paid  for,  but  he  will  make  a 
profit  on  both.  Really  capital  is  produced  by,  drawn  from, 
labor,  instead  of  the  reward  of  labor  (wages)  being  drawn 
from  capital.  The  materials  of  which  the  shoes  are  made 
were  either  accumulated  by  the  efforts  by  the  manufacturer 
as  a  laborer,  or  by  some  laborer  or  laborers  who  gave  him 
this  capital.  This  ought  to  be  clear  to  a  child,  and  yet 
eminent  doctors  dispute  most  violently  and  continuously 
over  so  evident  a  proposition. 

It  is  attempted  to  prove  the  wages  fund  theory  by  show- 
ing that  an  increase  in  wages  decreases  the  profits  of  the 
employer.  Pay  the  shoemaker  $2.  25  for  his  work  on  the 
pair  of  shoes  and  the  employer  wculd  only  get  65  cents 
instead  of  90,  and  this  is  why  employers,  are  so  strongly 
opposed  to  an  increase  in  wages.  But  it  must  be  re- 
membered that  the  additional  25  cents  is  drawn  from  profits 
not  from  capital,  and  some  employers  are  willing  to  share 
the  profits  with  their  employes  in  order  to  keep  them  and 
do  justice  to  them.  Why  should  this  not  be  done  .?  Sup- 
pose the  employer's  contribution  to  the  product  is  worth 
|2.oo  and  the  laborer's  contribution  is  worth  the  same,  but 


MR.  GEORGE'S  THEORY  OF  WAGES.  55 

the  sale  of  the  shoes  brings  more  than  what  the  joint  con- 
tribution cost.  Why  should  not  both  parties  to  the  trans- 
action receive  an  equal  share  of  the  profits  ?  However, 
the  point  here  insisted  upon  is  that  wages,  or  an  increase 
in  wages  is  not  drawn  from  capital,  but  either  from  the 
.product  of  labor  or  from  a  third  something  (profits)  to 
which  capital  has  no  more  right  than  labor. 

Mr.  George,  then  is  right  in  his  idea  of  the  source  of 
wages  ;  but  an  even  more  important  question  than  this  is, 
What  determines  the  rate  of  wages.  What  makes  wages 
rise  or  fall.?  And  Mr.  George's  answer  to  this  is  wholly  er- 
roneous. He  says  :  ''In  their  degree  wages  rise  and  fall 
in  obedience  to  a  common  law.  What  is  this  law  ?  The 
fundamental  principle  of  human  action — the  law  that  is  to 
political  economy  what  the  law  of  gravitation  is  to  physics 
— is  that  men  seek  to  gratify  their  desires  with  the  least 
exertion.  Now  under  this  principle,  what,  in  conditions 
of  freedom,  will  be  the  terms  at  which  one  man  can  hire 
others  to  work  for  him  }  Evidently  they  will  be  fixed  by 
what  the  men  could  make  if  laboring  for  themselves." 
This  is  not  true,  Mr.  Gunton  well  says  :  "Suppose  the  em- 
ployer can  and  will  pay  the  laborer  more  than  he  can  get 
working  for  himself,  then  this  whole  contention  falls  to 
the  ground  ;  for  in  that  case  what  the  laborer  could  earn 
working  for  himself  would  have  nothing  whatever  to  do 
with  deciding  what  his  wages  would  be  in  working  for 
another." 

It  is  remarkable  that  so  practical  a  man  as  Mr.  George 
is  should  put  forward  such  contention,  for  it  is  well  known 
that  everybody  prefers  to  work  for  himself  and  only  works 
for  another  because  he  can  make  more  than  he  can  by 
working  for  himself. 

But  the  most  serious  defect  in  Mr.  George's  wages 
theory  is  his  claim  that  "wages  depend  upon  the  margin  of 
cultivation  ;  or  upon  the  produce  which  labor  can  obtain  at 
the  highest  point  of  natural  productiveness  open  to  it  with- 
out the  payment  of  rent."  In  other  words,  the  wages  of 
the  country  are  governed  by  what  the  laborer  could  make 
on  land  given  him  by  the  government  or  in  a  shop  for 
which  he  had  to  pay  no  rent.  But  suppose  an  employer 
in  Pittsburg  would  pay  the  western  farmer  more  to  drive 
one  of  his  wagons  than  he  could  make  on  his  no-rent  land, 
what  would  its  productiveness  have  to  do  with  determining 


56  TOPICS  OF  THE  TIMES. 

wages  ?  Or  if  he  would  pay  the  village  blacksmith  more 
than  he  could  make  in  his  no-rent  shop  what  connection, 
would  his  no  rent  shop  have  with  his  wages  or  the  general 
rate  of  wages  in  the  factory  ?  If  wages  were  determined 
by  the  produce  which  labor  could  obtain  from  the  most 
productive  no-rent  land,  then  wages  would  be  far  below* 
their  present  level  in  many  countries.  In  Switzerland  the 
peasants  cultivate  the  barren  hillsides  for  which  they  pay 
no  rent,  and  in  Holland  they  cultivate  the  no-rent  sand 
dunes  and  barely  eke  out  enough  to  breathe  on.  If  Mr. 
George's  contention  that  the  general  wages  of  a  country 
are  determined  by  the  produce  of  the  best  of  such  land, 
wages  in  Switzerland  and  Holland  ought  to  be  much  lower 
than  they  are.  Prof.  J.  B.  Clark  of  Smith  College  well 
says  :  ' '  The  theory  that  the  general  reward  of  labor  is  fixed 
by  the  gains  that  men  can  realize  by  tilling  no-rent  land, 
if  this  theory  has  any  accurate  meaning,  must  claim  that 
when  land  is  not  to  be  had  in  fee  simple  for  the  askmg  but 
when  valueless  land  may  be  occupied  rent  free,  the  gains 
realized  by  workmen  in  all  departments  are  gauged  by  the 
product  realized  on  such  land  by  actual  hand  tilling.  It 
means  that  workers  in  Belgian  mills  must  take,  with  al- 
lowance for  minor  variations,  what  Belgian  peasants  get 
by  cultivating  the  sandy  wastes  that  border  the  sea.  It 
means  that  watchmakers  of  Switzerland  must  accept  pay 
that,  with  similar  allowance,  tends  to  conform  to  the 
amount  that  their  peasant  countrymen  can  extort  from 
patches  of  green  among  the  crags.  It  means  that,  when 
the  free  lands  of  America  shall  have  been  allotted  to 
owners,  wage-earners  will  generally  get  what  any  one  of 
them  might  produce,  if  he  chose  to  build  a  shanty  and 
by  the  sufferance  of  a  proprietor,  till  a  piece  of  poor  and 
untenanted  ground.  This  would  be  a  peculiar  kind  of 
*  squatter  sovereignty' — the  man  in  the  shanty,  dominat- 
ing labor,  extending  his  power  over  workmen  of  every 
class  and  fixing  the  amount  of  their  wages  and  the  con- 
sequent level  of  their  lives."  As  a  matter  of  fact,  we  know 
that  nothing  of  the  kind  happens.  The  rate  of  wages  is 
determined  by  something  entirely  different  from  "the 
margin  of  cultivation."  From  the  laborer's  side,  it  is 
governed  by  his  ''standard  of  living,"  that  is,  the  least 
that  will  satisfy  his  actual  wants.  From  the  employer's 
standpoint,  it  is  governed  by  the  utility  of  the  labor  to  him. 


MR.  GEORGE'S  THEORY  OF  WAGES.  57 

No  man  could  work  for  less  than  would  furnish  food,  and 
clothes  for  himself  and  family,  at  lest  for  any  length  of 
time,  and  so  his  wants  fix  the  minimum  wage  he  will  re- 
ceive. On  the  other  hand,  the  utility  of  the  labor  to  the 
employer  will  fix  the  maximum  wage  he  will  receive.  If 
the  employer  is  a  carpenter,  for  instance,  and  is  building 
a  number  of  houses  and  sorely  in  need  of  *' hands,"  he 
may  pay  them  I3.00  a  day  each,  and  yet  the  working  man 
may  not  actually  need  more  than  one  or  two  dollars  for 
the  necessaries  of  life.  In  that  case,  of  course,  his  wants 
would  have  nothing  to  do  with  the  fixing  of  the  rate  of 
wages.  It  may  be  said  just  here  that  I  have  left  out  a 
very  important,  indeed  the  most  important  factor  in  the 
determination  of  the  rate  of  wages,  viz.:  **The  state  of 
the  labor  market."  But  I  have  not ;  that  is  included  in  the 
consideration  of  the  utility  of  the  labor  to  the  employer. 
If  there  are  many  carpenters  out  of  work  and  anxious  to 
get  it,  their  labor  being  superfluous  is,  of  course,  less  use- 
ful and  hence  the  employer  would  offer  less  to  any  one  he 
might  employ.  The  least,  too,  that  the  most  needy  work- 
ingman  in  a  given  trade  would  take  would  fix  the  rate  of 
wages  of  all  the  rest.  Of  course,  I  don't  mean  that  the 
man  who  could  live  the  cheapest  would  settle  the  rate  of 
wages,  but  just  the  opposite.  The  man  with  a  large 
family  would  need  more  than  a  single  man,  and  he  would 
therefore  set  the  rate  of  wages.  The  single  man,  being 
as  good  a  workman  as  the  married  man,  would,  of  course, 
demand  the  same  wage,  and  as  the  married  man  could 
not  live  on  less  (say)  than  #2.50  a  day,  the  single  man 
would  get  this  also,  and  this  naturally  happens.  Hence 
the  rate  of  wages  is  determined  by  the  cost  of  living  of 
him  whose  necessities  are  the  greatest — whose  expenses  are 
the  heaviest.  As  the  other  workmen  in  the  same  trade 
would  not  take  less  than  he  and  as  the  employer  would 
not  pay  more,  his  needs  would  be  the  determining  factor 
in  settling  the  rate  of  wages.  Just  here  comes  in  the  ad- 
vantage of  labor  organizations.  Working  men  by  com- 
bining and  studying  each  other's  needs  can  ascertain  the 
cost  of  living  of  the  best  workmen,  and  most  expensive 
families,  and  can,  therefore,  fix  the  rate  of  wages.  We 
conclude,  then,  that  wages  are  drawn  from  the  products 
of  labor  and  are  governed  by  the  wants  of  the  laborer 
whose  family  expenses  are  the  greatest  and  by  the  utihty 
of  his  labor  to  the  employer. 


58  TOPICS  OF  THE  TIMES. 


V. 
MR.   George's  views  on  the  ownership  of  land  seem  to  me 

WHOLLY  ERRONEOUS. 

He  thinks  that  private  property  in  land  is  morally  wrong 
— is  unjust.      "  What  constitutes  the  rightful  basis  of  prop- 
erty ? "  he  asks.      "What  is  it  that  enables  a  man  to  justly 
say  of  a  thing,   '  It  is  mine  ' .?     From  what  springs  the  senti- 
ment which   acknowledges  his  exclusive  right  as   against 
the  world?     Is  it  not,  primarily,  the  right  of  a  man  to  him- 
self to  the  use  of  his  own  powers,  to  the  enjoyment  of  the 
fruits  of  his  own  exertions .?     As  a  man  belongs  to  himself, 
so  labor  when  put  in  concrete  form  belongs   to  him,  and 
for  this  reason,  that  which  a  man  makes  or  produces  is  his 
own,  as  against  all  the  world — to  enjoy  or  destroy,  to  use, 
to  exchange,  or  to  give.     The  pen   with  which  I  am  writ- 
ing is  mine.     No  other  human  being  can  rightfully  lay  claim 
to  it,  for  in  me  is  the  title  of  the  producers  that  made  it. 
It  has  become  mine,   because  transferred  to  me  by  the 
stationer,  to  whom  it  was  transferred  by  the  importer,  who 
obtained  the  exclusive  right  to  it  by  transfer  from  the  manu- 
facturer,  in    whom  by    the    same    process    of    purchase, 
vested    in    the    rights    of   those    who    dug    the    material 
from  the  ground  and  shaped  it  into  a  pen.     A  house  and 
the  lot  on  which  it  stands  are  alike  property,  as  being  the 
subject  of  ownership,  and  are  alike  classed  by  lawyers  as 
real  estate,  yet  in  nature  and  relations  they  differ  widely. 
The  one  is   produced  by  human  labor  and  belongs  to  the 
class  in  political  economy  styled  wealth.     The  other  is  a 
part  of  nature,  and  belongs  to  the  class  in  political  economy 
styled  land.   The  essential  character  of  the  one  class  of  things 
is  that  they  embody  labor,  are  brought  into  being  by  human 
exertion,  their  existence  or  non-existence,  their  increase  or 
diminution,  depending  on  man.     The  essential  character 
of  the  other  class  of  things  is  that   they  do  not  embody 
labor,  and   exist  irrespective   of  man.     The  moment  this 
distinction  is  realized,  that  moment  is  it  seen  that  the  sanc- 
tion which  natural  justice  gives  to  one  species  of  property 


MR.  GEORGE  ON  LAND  OWNERSHIP,  cq 

is  denied  to  the  other.  Whatever  may  be  said  for  the  in- 
stitution of  private  property  in  land,  it  is,  therefore,  plain 
that  it  cannot  be  defended  on  the  score  of  justice."  * 

This  is  Mr.  George's  arg-ument  against  the  private  owner- 
ship of  land,  fully  stated  in  his  own  words  and  with  his  own 
illustrations,  and  he  says  that  he  is  willing  to  test  his  theory 
by  this  high  moral  standard,  and  let  it  stand  or  fall  accord- 
ing as  it  shall  or  shall  not  stand  the  test.  We  accept  the 
position  and  undertake  to  refute  the  contention. 

First,  let  us  consider  I\Ir.  George's  idea  of  our  right  to 
ourselves.  What  gives  us  a  right  to  the  possession  of  our 
bodies .?  The  fact,  answers  our  author,  that  we  have  pro- 
duced them  by  adding  to  them  materials  taken  from  the 
great  storehouse  of  Nature.  Of  course  this  leaves  out  of  con- 
sideration the  origin,  the  primal  derivation  of  our  bodies ;  but 
we  will  let  this  pass,  and  admit  that  our  parents  had  a 
right  to  give  us  of  their  substance.  The  continuous  pres- 
ervation of  our  bodies,  after  a  certain  age,  is  due  to  the 
fact  that  we  have  added  to  them  by  taking  certain  materials 
from  Nature's  storehouse  and  weaving  them  into  our  frames. 
What  have  we  done  ?  We  have  simply  moved  certain 
materials  of  nature  from  one  point — say  the  field  or  the 
garden — to  another  point  in  Nature,  viz.,  our  stomachs. 
Yet  this  moving  of  materials,  says  Mr.  George,  truly,  this 
mixing  of  our  labor  with  natural  products,  makes  them 
ours — gives  us  a  right  to  our  bodies. 

Secondly,  the  same  is  true  of  the  pen  we  use  or  the 
house  we  live  in.  Manifestly  we  do  not  create  the  ma- 
terials out  of  which  our  bodies,  pens  or  houses  are  made. 
We  simply  affect  their  superficies,  we  merely  move  them 
from  one  point  in  Nature  to  another,  and  create  new  com- 
binations of  these  materials.  We,  therefore,  produce  no 
thing,  but  only  a  cojiihinatioii  of  things,  and  our  author 
admits  that  such  an  action  gives  us  a  right  to  these 
things.  ''The  essential  character  of  the  one  class  of  things 
(houses,  etc.)  is  that  they  embody  labor,  are  brought  into 
being  by  human  exertion."  They  "embody  labor,"  but 
their  materials  are  not  created  by  man.  "The  essential 
character  of  the  other  class  of  things  (land)  is  that  they  do 
not  embody  labor."  Why  not.?  If  I  go  into  the  forest 
and  clear  off  the  timber,   drain  its  bogs,   fence  the  land, 

*  "  Progress  and  Poverty,"  Book  VII.,  Chapter  I. 


6o  TOPICS  OF  THE  TIMES. 

break  it,  plant  it,  etc.,  why  does  it  not  ''  embody  my  labor" 
as  truly  as  the  house  which  I  build  from  the  materials  taken 
perhaps  from  the  same  source  ?  I  have  created  nothing  in 
either  case,  but  I  have  affected  very  deeply  the  superficies 
of  both  the  land  and  the  timber  in  the  house  ,•  my  labor  is 
truly  embodied  in  both,  in  one  as  well  as  in  the  other  ; 
and  since  Mr.  George  admits  that  such  embodiment  of 
labor  gives  a  right  to  ownership  in  the  one  case,  he  must 
logically  admit  that  it  gives  a  right  to  ownership  in  the 
other.  Both  houses  and  land  may  be  rightfully,  justly 
held  by  the  same  tenure.  The  fact  that  makes  one  mine 
may  make  the  other  mine  also.  I  have  discussed  this  sub- 
ject with  Mr.  George,  but  his  attempted  answers  to  this 
argument  were  as  unsatisfactory  to  me  as  they  were  to 
several  others  who  argued  the  case  with  him.  Tried  by 
his  own  test,  therefore,  his  theory  of  land-ownership  falls 
to  the  ground  because  the  distinction  he  draws  between 
the  basis  of  landed  property  and  other  sorts  of  property  is 
gratuitous  and  fallacious. 

If,  now,  Mr.  George  had  argued  with  Herbert  Spencer, 
that  the  mixing  of  labor  with  a  thing  cannot  give  a  title  to 
it  in  any  case  ;  that  the  catching  and  training  of  a  wild 
horse,  or  the  building  of  a  house,  does  not  give  a  right  to 
it,  then  indeed  he  might  logically  hold,  with  Spencer,  that 
private  ownership  is  and  must  be  morally  wrong.*  But 
when  he  admits  that  labor  spent  upon  the  materials  of  a 
house  makes  it  ours,  he  must  logically  admit  that  the  labor 
we  put  upon  land  makes  it  ours.  I  think  he  has  done  a 
good  service  by  clearly  showing  that  neither  conquest  nor 
priority  of  possession  can  give  a  valid  title  to  land,  but 
only  labor.  If  this  test  were  rigidly  applied,  how  many 
land-monopolists  and  dishonest  speculators  in  land  would 
lose  their  occupation  ! 

But  there  is  another  line  of  argument  which  may  be  more 
forcibly  urged  against  the  private  ownership  of  land,  and 
that  is  that  by  permitting  it  we  may  injure  society  as  a 
whole  or  some  members  of  society.  Let  it  be  at  once 
observed  that  we  have  now  passed  from  the  moral  to  the 
economic  aspect  of  this  subject.  The  question  is  no  longer, 
Is  the  private  ownership  of  land  right  ^ud  Just  r  but.  Is  it 

*  See  Spencer's  "  Social  Statics,"  Chapters  IX.  and  X.,  which,  however, 
was  somewhat  modified  by  Spencer  in  the  latter  part  of  his  life. 


MR.  GEORGE  ON  LAND  OWNERSHIP,  6 1 

best  for  society — is  it  expedient  ?  My  owning  a  piece  of 
land  may  prove  quite  inconvenient  to  some  people  who 
would  like  to  use  it,  and  yet  by  virtue  of  the  labor  I  have 
spent  upon  it  I  may  justly  exclude  them  from  its  use.  But 
even  from  the  economic  standpoint — the  standpoint  of 
expediency — Mr.  George's  argument  against  the  private 
ownership  of  land  cannot  stand  the  test  of  logic.  He  is  a 
strong  anti-Malthusian.  He  does  not  believe  that  pop- 
ulation increases, or  tends  to  increase,  faster  than  the  means 
of  subsistence.  He  believes  that  the  Earth — even  that  part 
of  it  called  Ireland — is  quite  capable  of  supporting  all  its 
inhabitants.  There  is,  and  always  will  be,  he  thinks,  more 
than  enough  standing-room  for  the  people  ;  there  will  be 
plenty  of  land  to  use.  Why,  then,  object  to  their  using  it.? 
If  there  is  enough  and  more  than  enough  land  for  all  men, 
why  object  to  some  men  owning,  exclusively  using,  certain 
portions  of  it .?  Why  may  they  not  say  to  others  :  We  have 
spent  our  labor  upon  this  land  or  our  fathers  did  and  they 
transferred  it  to  us  just  as  the  manufacturer  and  seller  of 
pens  transferred  your  pen  to  you  and  therefore  you  must 
go  elsewhere  and  get  land .?  Of  course  if  they  cannot  truth- 
fully claim  ownership  of  the  land  by  virtue  of  their  spending 
labor  or  the  equivalent  of  labor  upon  it,  then  they  have  no 
right  to  it ;  and  I  freely  admit  that  many  land-monopolists 
and  speculators  have  no  such  good  title  to  their  lands.  But 
that  is  not  the  point  here  considered.  The  point  is  that 
if  there  is,  as  Mr.  George  says  there  is,  enough  land  in 
existence  for  all  men  now  on  earth  or  that  will  be  on  earth 
at  any  future  time,  then  however  crowded  may  be  the  pop- 
ulation at  any  given  point  in  Ireland  or  China  for  instance, 
yet  there  are  unoccupied  tracts  of  land  at  other  points  of 
the  earth's  surface  to  which  the  landless  men  should  go 
instead  of  disturbing  those  men  who  own  land  by  virtue 
of  their  own  labor  spent  upon  it  or  the  labor  of  those  who 
gave  it  to  them.  Hence  we  conclude  that  the  private  owner- 
ship of  land  is  morally  right  provided  the  owner  has  either 
spent  his  labor  upon  it  or  given  the  equivalent  of  a  former 
owner's  labor  for  it. 

4.  Finally,  Mr.  George's  theory  of  land  taxatio7i  seems 
to  me  utterly  erroneous.  His  views  on  this  subject  are 
often  misunderstood  and  misstated  and  therefore  I  shall 
state  them  in  his  own  words.  "  I  do  not  propose, "  he  says, 
"either  to  purchase  or  to  confiscate  private  property  in  land. 


62  TOPICS  OF  THE  TIMES. 

The  first  would  be  unjust ;  the  second,  needless.  Let  the 
individuals  who  now  hold  it  still  retain  it,  if  they  want  to, 
the  possession  of  what  they  are  pleased  to  call  their  land. 
Let  them  continue  to  call  it  their  land.  Let  them  buy  and 
sell  and  bequeath  and  devise  it !  We  may  safely  leave 
them  the  shell  if  we  take  the  kernel.  //  is  not  necessary  to 
confiscate  land  :  it  is  only  necessary  to  confiscate  rent.  We 
already  take  some  rent  in  taxation.  We  have  only  to  make 
some  changes  in  our  modes  of  taxation  to  take  it  all.  What 
I,  therefore,  propose  ...  is  ...  to  appropriate  rent  by 
taxatio7t.  In  this  way  the  State  may  become  the  universal 
landlord  without  calling  herself  so,  and  without  assuming 
a  single  new  function.  lr\  form,  the  ownership  of  land 
would  remain  just  as  now.  No  owner  of  land  need  be 
dispossessed,  and  no  restriction  need  be  placed  upon  the 
amount  of  land  anyone  could  hold.  For  rent  being  taken 
by  the  State  in  taxes,  land,  no  matter  in  whose  name  it 
stood  or  in  what  parcels  it  was  held,  would  be  really  com- 
mon property,  and  every  member  of  the  community  would 
participate  in  the  advantages  of  its  ownership."  This  result 
may  be  accomplished  simply  by  ''abolishing  all  taxation 
save  that  upon  land  values. " 

The  word  ''rent"  as  here  used  has  a  technical  meaning, 
and  must  be  explained.  "The  term  rent,"  says  our  author, 
*'in  its  economic  sense — that  is,  when  used  as  I  am  using 
it,  to  distinguish  that  part  of  the  produce  which  accrues 
to  the  owners  of  land  or  other  natural  capabilities  by  virtue 
of  their  ownership — differs  in  meaning  from  the  word  rent 
as  commonly  used. 

"  In  common  speech,  we  apply  the  word  rent  to  pay- 
ments for  the  use  of  buildings,  machinery,  fixtures,  etc., 
as  well  as  payments  for  the  use  of  land  or  other  natural 
capabilities  :  and  in  speaking  of  the  rent  of  a  house  or  the 
rent  of  a  farm,  we  do  not  separate  the  price  for  the  use  of 
the  improvements  from  the  price  for  the  use  of  the  bare 
land.  But  in  the  economic  meaning  of  rent,  payments 
for  the  use  of  any  of  the  products  of  human  exertion  are 
excluded,  and  of  the  limited  payments  for  the  use  of 
houses,  farms,  etc.,  only  that  part  is  rent  which  constitutes 
the  consideration  for  the  use  of  the  land."  It  is  this  econ- 
omic rent  that  Mr.  George  proposes  to  appropriate  as 
taxes,  while  all  other  property  is  to  go  scot-free  from 
taxation. 


MR.   GEORGE  ON  LAND  OWNERSHIP.  63 

The  important  question,  therefore,  arises  :  Why  should 
land  be  made  to  bear  the  whole  burden  of  taxation  ?  For 
many  reasons,  answers  Mr.  George.  First,  "  rei>t  or  land 
value  does  not  arise  from  productiveness  or  utility  of 
land.  No  matter  what  are  its  capabilities,  land  can  yield 
no  rent  and  have  no  value  until  some  one  is  willing  to 
give  labor  or  the  results  of  labor  for  the  privilege  of  using 
it,  and  what  one  will  tlius  give,  depends  not  upon  the 
capacity  of  the  land,  but  upon  its  capacity  as  compared 
with  that  of  land  that  can  be  had  for  nothing.  I  may  have 
very  rich  land,  but  it  will  yield  no  rent  and  have  no  value  so 
long  as  there  is  other  land  as  good  to  be  had  without 
cost.  But  when  this  other  land  is  appropriated,  and  the 
best  land  to  be  had  for  nothing  \sm/e?'ior,  either  infertility, 
situation  or  other  quality,  my  land  will  begin  to  have  a 
value  and  yield  rent."  In  other  words,  our  author  means 
that  the  value  of  land  depends  upon  the  growth  of  the 
community,  and  since  the  community  gives  value  to  the 
land  it  is  right  that  the  community  should  receive  from  the 
land  its  value. 

On  the  other  hand,  it  is  assumed  that  the  growth  of  the 
community  does  not  add  to  the  value  of  other  property, 
"labor  products,"  and  therefore  it  has  no  right  to  appropri- 
ate any  such  values  as  taxes.  We  utterly  deny  the  truth 
of  both  propositions.  First,  the  growth  of  the  community 
does  not  entirely  create  the  value  of  land.  It  does  increase 
that  value,  as  we  constantly  see  happening  in  the  case  of 
growing  towns  and  settlements.  But  the  land  has  an 
inherent  value.  If  not,  why  should  Mr.  George  want  it. -^ 
Why  quarrel  about  a  valueless  thing .?  Suppose  a  man  be 
shipwrecked  and  cast  on  a  fertile  and  fruitful  but  uninhab- 
ited island.  I  fancy  that  he  would  consider  it  very  valu- 
able, first,  as  affording  him  standing  room,  an  escape 
from  a  watery  grave,  and,  secondly,  as  furnishing  him 
food,  etc.  ;  and  if  he  were  to  cultivate  the  products  found 
there,  drain  the  land,  clear  off  the  forests,  fence  it,  etc., 
who  will  deny  that  his  island  home  is  valuable  to  him.? 
It  is  simply  false,  therefore  to  say,  "■  It  is  only  where  two 
(or  more)  men  want  the  same  land  that  it  has  value. "  Land 
always  has  value  to  its  owner,  or  he  would  not  own  it. 
Take  land  near  a  city.  Some  of  it,  say,  is  uncultivated, 
undrained,  unfenced,  uncleared  and  infertile  ;  other  some  is 
in    ''good  order,"  well    cleared,     drained,    fertilized,    etc. 


54  TOPICS  OF  THE  TIMES. 

Suppose  now  five  or  ten  thousand  people  move  into  this 
town.  Land,  of  course,  rises  in  value.  But  is  its  value  only 
now  created  ?  Of  course  not.  The  fine  farm  was  valuable 
to  its  owner  before  the  increase  in  population  occurred,  and 
all  that  happens  by  the  increase  in  population  is  an  increase 
in  the  value  of  land.  But  that  land  upon  which  labor  has 
been  spent  is  worth  more  and  brings  a  better  price  than 
the  unused  land  because  of  the  labor  that  had  been  spent 
upon  it ;  and  this  shows  that  land  is  inherently  valuable ; 
that  labor  spent  upon  it  adds  to  its  value,  and  hence  the 
growth  of  the  community  is  nol  the  only  cause  of  land- 
values.  The  community,  therefore,  may  not  justly  appro- 
priate all  the  rent  or  value  of  land  as  taxes.  All  that  Mr. 
George's  argument  proves  is  that  land  varies  in  value  from 
zero  upward,  owing  partly  to  the  differences  in  the 
demand  for  it.  But  this  is  equally  true  of  every  other 
species  of  property,  and  hence  we  deny  that  the  growth 
of  the  community  does  not  increase  the  value  of  labor 
products.  How  'strange  that  a  thoughtful  mind  should 
deny  this  simple  fact !  Every  huckster  knows  that  the 
scarcity  of  his  articles  of  sale  or  an  increased  demand  for 
them  increases  their  value  and  price.  Every  tenant  knows 
that  the  scarcity  of  houses,  even  where  the  groujid  rent  is 
paid  to  the  municipality,  as  in  Savannah,  Ga.,  increases 
his  house  rent.  The  value  oi  everything  \?,  increased  when 
two  or  more  men  want  it,  and  hence  if  the  community  has 
a  right  to  appropriate  such  value  in  one  case  it  has  a  right 
to  do  so  in  every  case.  Mr.  George  has  never  answered 
these  two  fundamental  objections  to  his  theory  of  taxation. 
In  attempting  to  do  so  before  the  Social  Science  Associa- 
tion at  Saratoga,  in  1890,  he  admitted  that  the  increased 
value  of  frajichises  due  to  the  growth  of  a  community,  is 
like  the  increased  value  of  land  from  the  same  cause. 
*'As  the  village  grows,''  he  said,  "into  the  city,  the  busi- 
ness of  the  street  railway  becomes  more  profitable.  So 
with  gas-works,  water-works,  etc.  So  with  railways  gener- 
ally. "  But,  if  their  increased  profits  are  not  ultimately 
resolvable  into  increased  economic  rent,  they  are  of  the 
same  nature.  Such  franchises  are  special  privileges,  like 
the  privilege  of  holding  valuable  land,  and  the  profits 
due  to  the  general  growth  ought,  as  we  hold,  to  be  taken 
for  public  use,  or  diffused  through   the  community  by  a 


MR.  GEORGE  ON  LAND  OWNERSHIP.  65 

reduced  price  of  services."     To  this  Prof.  E.  R.  A.  Selig- 
man,  of  Columbia  College,  New  York,  well  replied  : 

*'  Now,  this  means  one  of  two  things,  either  the  com- 
munity must  tax  them  (the  franchises)  or  it  must  acquire 
them  by  purchase  or  confiscation.  If  the  State  taxes 
them,  we  no  longer  have  the  single  tax  on  land  values,  but 
also  an  additional  tax  on  something  else.  What,  then, 
becomes  of  the  great  crusade  for  the  single  tax .''  But  if 
the  State  acquires  them — that  is  to  say,  nationalizes  all 
occupations,  which  enjoy  a  special  franchise,  how  is  Mr. 
George  to  be  distinguished  from  those  Socialists  whom  he 
professes  so  to  abhor.?  These  are  the  horns  of  the  di- 
lemma." The  professor  also  properly  denied  Mr.  George's 
contention  that  there  is  no  ''unearned  increment"  in  any- 
thing but  land.  Thus,  he  said,  the  value  of  railway 
securities  in  the  United  States  to-day  is  over  $9,000,000,000, 
and  the  securities  of  other  corporations  amount  to  many 
millions  more.  It  is  safe  to  say  that  the  value  of  the  bare 
land,  owned  by  individuals,  is  far  less  then  these  corporate 
securities,  which  form  a  large  part  of  the  intangible  per- 
sonal property  of  individuals.  Now,  has  anything  that 
Mr.  George  advances  tended  to  disprove  the  existence  of 
unearned  increments  in  these.?  I  invest  $100,000  in  the 
railway  bonds  of  a  young  corporation  ;  I  get  6  per  cent. 
interest,  and  pay  perhaps  $50  on  the  par  value  of  them. 
In  the  course  of  twenty  years,  during  which  time  the  com- 
munity has  grown  and  given  the  railroad  more  traffic,  this 
bond  is  worth  par  or  even  $150,  and  my  investment  rep- 
resents now  |200,ooo  or  even  $300,000.  Have  I  earned 
this  increment.?  Have  I  individually  done  anything  to 
produce  the  added  value  .?  It  is  as  much  the  work  of  the 
community  as  the  increase  in  the  value  of  any  land.  Why 
take  away  the  unearned  increment  of  the  land-holder  and 
leave  intact  the  equally  unearned  increment  of  the  bond- 
holder.? Do  you  not  see  that  this  is  the  rankest  in- 
justice.? " 

We  conclude,  therefore,  that  the  growth  of  the  commu- 
nity is  not  the  only  factor  in  the  production  of  land-values, 
but  labor  is  as  much  of  a  factor  in  producing  such  values  as 
it  is  in  producing  other  values  ;  and  secondly,  the  growth  of 
the  community  increases  the  value  of  other  things,  "  labor 
products,"  as  truly  as  it  does  the  value  of  land,  and  hence 
it  is  unjust  to  appropriate  all  land-values  as  taxes.     There 

5 


66  TOPICS  OF  THE  TIMES. 

are  other  objections  to  the  single  tax.  It  violates  that 
canon  or  rule  of  taxation,  universally  accepted,  even  by 
Mr.  George,  that  taxes  should  fall  equally  upon  the  subjects 
of  a  commonwealth  ;  that  each  one  should  contribute  to 
its  support  according  to  his  ahiliiy.  In  this  case  land-holders 
alone  would  contribute  to  the  support  of  the  government 
and  others  would  go  scot-free.  This  is  one  of  the  points 
most  strongly  urged  in  favor  of  the  single  tax,  and  it  means 
that  land-holders  are  the  only  persons  who  derive  any 
advantages,  from  society  for  which  they  should  pay — a 
palpable  absurdity.  The  very  object  of  society  is  to  protect 
life  and  property  (of  all  sorts),  and  hence  all  men  derive 
benefits  from  society  and  should  pay  something  to  its 
support. 

There  is  much  said /^/'o  and  con  about  "compensation" 
of  land-owners  if  the  land  should  be  nationlized.  Of 
course,  if  it  be  admitted  that  nothing  can  be  done  to  land, 
in  the  first  place,  to  entitle  one  to  it,  then,  indeed,  Mr. 
George  is  right  in  saying  that  land-holders  should  not 
be  "  compensated"  for  the  loss  of  what  they  have  no  right 
to. 

But  as  we  hold  that  labor  spent  upon  land  increases  its 
value,  that  the  growth  of  the  community  also  increases  its 
value,  for  both  of  which  the  present  landholder  has  to  pay, 
if  he  is  robbed  of  his  property  he  must  be  compensated  for 
it,  just  as  railroad  corporations  would  have  to  be  reim- 
bursed if  the  railways  were  nationalized. 

Such,  then,  are  some  of  the  truths  and  some  of  the  errors 
of  Henry  George's  peculiar  views.  I  have  not,  of  course, 
stated  ail  of  his  opinions,  for  he  holds  many  commonly 
accepted  opinions  ;  nor  have  I  attempted  to  discuss  and 
refute  them  in  every  particular,  but  I  have  stated  his  dis- 
tmctive  views  and  the  most  simple  and  forcible  objections 
to  them.  From  all  this  it  should  be  clear  that  however 
great  may  be  the  service  Mr.  George  has  rendered  econ- 
omic science,  he  has  not  discovered  and  formulated  a 
panacea  for  all  our  social  ills.  He  has  drawn  glowing  and 
stirring  pictures  of  the  social  millennium  which  would  be 
ushered  in  if  the  Single  Tax  were  adopted,  but  while  our 
methods  of  taxation  are  most  iniquitous,  while  certain 
features  of  land  speculation  are  most  unjust,  while  the 
popular  ideas  of  wages  are  thoroughly  erroneous,  while 
our  "■  protective  tariffs"  are  barbarous,  yet  a  reform  in  no 


MR.   GEORGE   ON  LAND  OWNERSHIP.  67 

one  of  these  great  departments  of  social,  industrial  and 
political  life,  perhaps  not  even  reform  in  all  of  them  will 
restore  the  departed  glories  of  Eden.  Still,  let  us  hear 
from  every  one  who  has  anything  to  say  that  is  worth 
hearing  on  these  important  issues,  for  "in  the  multitude  of 
counsellors  there  is  safety,"  errors  are  exploded  and  truth 
is  established. 


68  TOPICS  OF  THE  TIMES, 


VI. 

THE    SAVAGES   OF  CIVILIZATION. 

This  chapter  was  caused  by  a  visit  through  the  slums  of 
New  York  City.  Of  course,  no  adequate  idea  of  the  hor- 
rible depths  of  degradation  that  exist  there  could  be  formed 
from  observations  made  during  one  short  trip  through  the 
slums.  But  being  familiar  with  poverty  in  other  cities, 
and  having  read  such  comprehensive  and  valuable  works 
as  Mr.  J.  A.  Riis's  "  How  the  Other  Half  Lives,"  General 
Booth's  "  In  Darkest  England,'"'  etc.,  I  feel  fairly  well  quali- 
fied to  say  a  few  words  on  this  important  subject. 

When  Prof.  Huxley  lived  as  a  medical  officer  in  the  east 
of  London  he  acquired  a  knowledge  of  the  condition  of  the 
life  of  its  denizens,  which  led  him  to  say  subsequently  that 
the  surroundings  of  the  savages  of  New  Guinea  were  much 
more  conducive  to  the  leading  of  a  decent  human  exist- 
ence than  those  in  which  many  of  the  East  Londoners 
live.  The  same  is  true  of  the  New  York  slums  and  their 
inhabitants  ;  nay,  it  is  substantially  true  of  ^//  the  slums  of 
all  our  large  towns  and  cities.  I  have  seen  as  abject  pov- 
erty in  Washington  City,  under  the  very  shadow  of  the 
National  Treasury,  whose  vaults  were  overflowing  with  a 
great  "surplus,"  taken  from  the  pockets  of  the  poor  and 
spent  (squandered)  on  "public  buildings"  in  various  con- 
gressional districts,  which  helped  to  re-elect  boodled  poli- 
ticians to  seats  which  they  disgraced — in  our  national 
capital  I  have  seen  as  great  poverty  and  suffering  as  there 
is  in  New  York  City.  In  a  wealthy,  thriving  western 
town  of  twenty-five  thousand  inhabitants,  a  family  con- 
sisting of  fifteen  members  have  been  found  living  in  one 
small  room  !  And  so  the  savages  of  civilization  are  not 
confined  to  New  York  City,  and  I  shall  speak  of  them 
simply  as  the  most  notable  examples  of  suffering  humanity 
in  our  midst. 

The  total  number  of  tenements  in  New  York  on  August 


THE  SAVAGES  OF  CIVILIZATION.  69 

ist,  1890,  according-  to  the  reliable  authority  of  Mr. 
Riis,  was  37,316  ;  their  population  numbered  1,250,000, 
and  the  number  of  rear  tenements,  amounted  to  2,630.  The 
denizens  of  these  places  consist  of  the  scum  of  Europe 
and  America — Italians,  Russians,  Poles,  Germans,  Jews, 
Irish,  English,  Chinese,  Negroes,  etc.  Mott  Street  gives 
us  Chinatown,  with  its  pigtails,  opium,  and  gambling. 
Bayard  Street  holds  the  degenerated  descendants  of 
Jacob  who  constitute  "Jewtown,"  with  its  sweating  hells. 
Baxter  Street  furnishes  the  nauseating  old-clothes"  shops. 
Fifth  Street,  Thirty-eighth  Street,  Fifty-fourth  and  Seventy- 
third  Street,  harbor  the  Bohemian  "rats."  Mulberry  Street 
with  its  historic  "  Bend,"  "  foul  core  of  New  York's  slums," 
its  stale  beer  dives  and  unimaginable  horrors,  caps  the 
climax  of  slum  degradation.  The  characteristics  of  the 
population  of  these  and  such  like  sections  are  as  follows 
(beginning  with  the  cradle)  :  the  waifs  that  are  cast  by 
their  poverty-stricken  parents  on  doorsteps,  the  street, 
or  into  the  Foundlings'  Hospital;  the  "street  arab,"  who 
has  not  where  to  lay  his  head,  except  on  the  pavement,  or 
in  some  corner  in  an  alley,  with  his  feet  stuffed  into  a 
box;  the  '^growler  gangs,'*'  consisting  of  the  "toughs" 
from  fifteen  years  upward,  who  infest  the  water-fronts,  belt 
the  city  and  wage  a  real  guerilla  warfare  upon  its  inhab- 
itants even  far  inland  ;  one  hundred  and  fifty  thousand 
girls  and  women  who  work  for  sixty  cents  a  day  on  an 
average;  "the  common  herd,"  numbering  thousands 
upon  thousands  who  do  not  live  but  simply  breathe  ;  myr- 
iads upon  whom  the  monster  Rum  has  naturally  if  not  nec- 
essarily set  his  deadly  grip  ;  the  blind,  the  deaf,  the  dumb, 
the  insane,  the  maimed,  the  wrecks  and  wastes  of  humanity 
are  all  found  here  or  are  supplied  from  this  source. 
Here  is  the  great  tenement  swarming  with  one  or  two 
hundred  human  brutes.  Here  are  the  horrible  barracks 
with  the  foul  and  reeking  courts  and  alleys  that  form  their 
purlieus,  and  the  swarming  rumshops  that  lie  in  wait  to 
catch  the  victims  their  sights  and  stenches  have  prepared. 
Here  is  the  "cheap  lodging-house,"  ghastly  caricature 
of  the  American  "hotel."  Here  are  hells  which  even  a  Dan- 
tean  imagination  could  not  conceive  and  paint  in  all  their 
horrors,  and  before  which  the  abode  of  the  damned  pictured 
in  traditional  orthodoxy  fades  into  a  paradise.  But  why  at- 
tempt to  describe  what  it  would  require  volumes  to  portray 


70  TOPICS  OF  THE   TIMES. 

in  all  its  awful  reality  ?  Mr.  Riis,  in  the  book  just  referred  to, 
has  given  us  a  full  and  accurate  picture  drawn  from  facts 
observed  by  himself,  and  to  it  and  such  books  as  General 
Booth's  ''Darkest  England,"  Helen  Campbell's  "Prisoners 
of  Poverty,"  etc.,  the  reader  is  referred  for  fuller  infor- 
mation as  to  the  conditions  of  the  poor  in  New  York  and 
other  great  cities.  I  am  here  concerned  with  the  causes 
and  possible   remedies  of  this  civilized  (?)  savagery. 

1.  The  tirst  cause  assigned  by  most  writers  on  the 
subject  is  i??i?nigrah'o7i.  But  I  consider  this  an  entire  mis- 
take. It  has  been  estimated  by  Rev.  Dr.  Strong,  in  his 
book  "  Our  Country,"  and  others,  that  the  United  States  is 
able  to  support  a  thousand  millions  of  people,  and  as  we 
have  only  about  sixty-five  millions  it  is  absurd  to  say  that 
immigration  is  the  cause  of  the  crowding  and  poverty  of 
the  slums  of  our  cities.  It  is  true  that  immigration  might, 
at  times,  have  the  effect  upon  New  York  and  other  ports 
that  a  rush  of  people  to  the  city  or  town  to  see  the  circus 
or  attend  a  political  '' jollification  "  would  have  on  the 
hotels  and  lodging-houses  :  it  might  temporarily  overcrowd 
the  cities.  But  if  the  immigrants  heard  of  any  attractions 
outside  of  the  cities  they  would  soon  disperse  through 
the  country  and  find  work  and  homes.  Immigration 
cannot  account  for  the  slums  of  London,  for  there  is  no 
immigration  into  England,  but,  on  the  contrary,  people 
leave  that  country  as  fast  as  possible  when  sufficient  in- 
ducements are  offered.  Immigration  cannot  explain  the 
permaneiicy  of  the  slums  in  this  country  or  any  other. 

2.  Well,  then,  it  is  said  it  is  due  to  the  7Z(7/«ra/ pressure 
of  population  upon  the  means  of  subsistence.  I  don't 
believe  a  word  of  it !  Whatever  truth  there  may  be  in  the 
Malthusian  theory  of  population,  no  one  familiar  with  the 
facts  of  the  case  will  say  that  England  or  the  United  States 
is  unable  to  support  all  of  its  inhabitants. 

There  is  plenty  of  land,  there  is  or  may  be  plenty  of 
work,  there  is  or  may  be  plenty  of  wealth  in  both  coun- 
tries to  afford  a  comfortable  living  to  every  man,  woman 
and  child  in  them.  Let  us,  therefore,  not  lay  upon  nature 
the  blame  which  belongs  elsewhere. 

The  New  York  Tribune,  in  reviewing  ]\Ir.  Riis's  book, 
said  :  "  It  is  one  of  the  conditions  of  existing  civilization 
all  over  the  world  that  pressure  of  population  accompanies 
what  is  called   progress,  and  from  the  pressure    arises  a 


THE  SAVAGES  OF  CIV/LIZA  TIOiV.  .    71 

competition  which,  despite  of  all  legislative  remedies, 
forces  the  poor  into  a  more  desperate  and  breathless  strug- 
gle for  bread,  and  kefeps  down  the  wages  of  labor  as  nearly 
as  possible  to  the  starvation  point.  But  it  must  at  once  be 
seen  that  in  New  York  the  natural  pressure  of  population 
upon  the  wage-fund  is  enormously  increased  "  by  immigra- 
tion, etc.  If  this  be  so,  we  need  not  be  surprised  that  Social- 
ists and  Anarchists  should  cry,  "  Away  w^ith  existing 
civilization  !  "  If  progress  increases  poverty  it  is  not  pro- 
gress but  retrogression,  and  we  would  better  abolish  ''-  ex- 
isting civilization,"  and  return  to  primitive  savagery.  But, 
fortunately,  both  statements  of  this  able  paper  are  false. 
Pressure  of  population,  whether  natural  or  artificial,  as  just 
shown,  has  little  or  nothing  to  do  with  our  civilized  sava- 
gery, and,  as  shown  in  the  last  chapter,  there  is  no  such 
thing  as  a  "  wage-fund" — a  fund  set  apart  by  capital  out 
of  its  proceeds  from  which  to  pay  wages.  Labor  pays 
itself  and  adds  to  capital,  and  what  we  want  is  no  increase 
in  an  imaginary  ''wages-fund,"  but  more  and  greater  op- 
portunities for  work,  which  being  used  will  produce  both 
capital  and  wages  in  greater  abundance.  //  is  because  men 
are  not  alloived  to  work  that  poverty  exists.  Land  and  other 
means  of  production  are  so  monopolized  and  mismanaged 
that  labor  cannot  find  employment.  This  is  the  real 
cause  of  poverty,  not  progress,  not  a  too  great  demand 
upon  an  imaginary  "wages-fund."  The  Tribune's  state- 
ment shows  what  evil  a  false  political  economy  may  pro- 
duce. 

It  is  said  that  the  influx  of  the  country  people  into  the 
cities  is  a  cause  of  the  slums,  and  it  is  simply  a  fact  that 
the  cities  are  growing  much  more  rapidly  than  the  country 
population. 

"In  1790,"  says  Dr.  Strong,  "one-thirtieth  of  the  popu- 
lation of  the  United  States  lived  in  cities  of  8,000  inhabitants 
and  over;  in  1800,  one  twenty-fifth;  in  1810,  and  also  in 
1820,  one-twentieth;  in  1830,  one-sixteenth  ;  in  1840,  one- 
twelfth;  in  1850,  one-eighth;  in  i860,  one-sixth;  in  1870, 
a  little  over  one-fifth  ;  and  in  1880,  nearly  one-fourth.  From 
1790  to  1880  the  whole  population  increased  twelvefold  the 
urban  population  eighty-six-fold.  From  1830  to  1880  the 
whole  population  increased  a  little  less  than  fourfold,  the 
urban  population  thirteenfold.  From  1870  to  1880  the  whole 
population  increased  thirty  per  cent,  the  urban  population 


72  TOPICS  OF  THE  TIMES. 

forty  per  cent.  During  the  half  century  preceding  1880, 
population  in  the  city  increased  more  than  four  times  as 
rapidly  as  that  of  the  village  and  coiwitry.  In  1800  there 
were  only  six  cities  in  the  United  States  which  had  a  popu- 
lation of  8,000  or  more,  in  1880  there  were  286."*  This 
lo.oks  as  if  we  are  destined  to  be  a  nation  of  cities,  and 
the  only  way  to  relieve  the  cities  that  are  overcrowded 
from  time  to  time  seem  to  be  to  absorb  the  country 
into  the  city  and  town  as  fast  as  possible.  Our  slums 
are  due  to  this  gathering  of  the  people  into  centres 
instead  of  dispersing  them  through  the  country,  say 
many  writers  on  the  subject.  Why  do  they  stay  in  or 
come  to  the  cities  }  they  ask.  Because,  we  answer,  they 
cannot  make  a  living  in  the  country.  It  is  really  amusing 
to  hear  people  saying  that  the  poor  of  the  cities  should  go 
to  the  country.  What  could  they  get  to  do  if  they  were  to 
go  to  the  country.?  Who  would  employ  them  }  It  is  well 
known  that  thousands  upon  thousands  of  farms  are  bur- 
dened with  mortgages,  and  the  farmers,  as  a  class,  must  be 
numbered  among  the  less  favored  ones  of  the  land.  Any 
one  who  has  ever  been  engaged  in  agricultural  pursuits, 
as  the  writer  has,  knows  that  farming  does  not  "pay," 
and  year  by  year  it  pays  less  and  less.  Of  course,  there 
are  rich  farmers  as  there  are  rich  manufacturers,  but 
their  wealth  has  been  due  to  peculiar  circumstances, 
and  these  very  men  will  tell  you  that  their  farms  are  not 
paying  them  now  ;  while  the  vast  majority  of  farmers  can 
barely  support  themselves  and  families.  During  harvest 
time  they  need  "hands,"  but  not  all  the  year  round,  and 
if  the  cities  were  to  dump  the  contents  of  their  slums  upon 
the  farms  there  would  be  an  uprising  of  the  farmers  un- 
paralleled in  history. 

Farming  must  be  made  more  profitable,  work  must  be 
increased  in  the  country  and  small  towns,  before  the  stream 
of  population  will  set  in  that  direction,  and  as  soon  as 
this  is  done  all  who  can  get  there  will  go  to  the  country, 
and  form  new  towns  and  cities  more  flourishing  than  the 
old.  But  there  are  myriads  who  are  financially  unable  to  get 
out  of  the  cities  even  if  they  had  a  place  in  the  country  to 
go  to,  and  many  more  are  unfit  for  farm-hands.  Those 
who  talk  about  the  slum-dwellers  going  to  the  country 
little  know  what  is  necessary  to  a  succesjful  and  comfort- 
*  Strong's  "Our  Country,"  p,  128. 


THE  SAVAGES  OF  CIVILIZATIOiV. 


73 


able  life  in  the  country.  "Misery  loves  company,"  and 
many  of  those  who  have  been  sent  to  the  country  have 
returned  to  the  city  simply  because  their  solitary  misery 
was  unendurable.  But  the  important  point  is  that  the 
country,  for  the  most  part,  is,  imder  present  conditio7is, 
quite  as  unable  to  support  the  starving-  millions  in  the 
cities  as  the  cities  are.  What  is  imperatively  demanded 
is  work  and  an  increase  in  produclion. 

In  former  years  the  cry,  "  Go  West  and  take  up  land  !  " 
was  more  rational  than  it  is  now,  for  so  much  of  our  public 
land  has  been  given  away  and  otherwise  disposed  of  that 
Dr.  Strong  tells  us  "the  farming  lands  of  the  West  will  all 
be  taken  before  the  close  of  this  century."  Even  if  we  had 
the  land  to  give  to  the  poor,  how  could  they  get  to  it,  and 
what  could  they  do  with  W.  We  see,  therefore,  the  folly 
of  the  cry,    "  Go  to  the  country  !  " 

Other  causes  are  assigned  to  account  for  the  slums  and 
poverty  in  general,  but  I  shall  reserve  a  consideration  of 
them  for  the  next  chapter,  and  turn  to  the  proposed  reme- 
dies for  the  evil. 

II.  How  shall  we  abolish  the  slums  or  improve  the 
condition  of  the  tenement-house  dweller.?  Of  course,  there 
are  many  nostrums  propounded  for  the  cure  of  this  social 
disease,  but  the  following  sensible  words  of  General  Booth 
effectually  dispose  of  them:  "  Of  the  schemes  of  those" 
(he  says)  "  who  propose  to  bring  in  a  new  heaven  and  a 
new  earth  by  a  more  scientific  distribution  of  the  pieces  of 
gold  and  silver  in  the  trousers  pockets  of  mankind,  I  need 
not  say  anything  here.  They  may  be  good  or  they  may  not. 
I  say  nothing  against  any  short  cut  to  the  millennium  that 
is  compatible  with  the  Ten  Commandments.  I  intensely 
sympathize  with  the  aspirations  that  lie  behind  all  these 
Socialist  dreams.  But  whether  it  is  Henry  George's  Single 
Tax  on  Land  Values,  or  Edward  Bellamy's  Nationalism,  or 
the  more  elaborate  schemes  of  the  Collectivists,  my  attitude 
towards  them  all  is  the  same.  What  these  good  people 
want  to  do,  I  also  want  to  do.  But  I  am  a  practical  man 
dealing  with  the  actualities  of  to-day.  I  have  no  precon- 
ceived theories,  and  I  flatter  myself  I  ^m  singularly  free 
from  prejudices.  I  am  ready  to  sit  at  the  feet  of  any  who 
will  show  me  any  good.  I  keep  my  mind  open  on  all 
these  subjects,  and  am  quite  prepared  to  hail  with  open 
arms  any  Utopia  that  is  offered  me.      But  it  must  be  within 


74  TOPICS  OF  THE  TIMES. 

range  o.  my  finger-tips.  It  is  of  no  use  to  me  if  it  is  in  the 
clouds.  Checks  on  the  Bank  of  Futurity  I  accept  gladly 
enough  as  a  free  gift,  but  I  can  hardly  be  expected  to  take 
them  as  if  they  were  current  coin,  or  to  try  to  cash  them 
at  the  Bank  of  England. 

"  It  may  be  that  nothing  will  be  put  permanently  right 
until  everything  has  been  turned  upside  down.  There  are 
certainly  so  many  things  that  need  transforming,  beginning 
with  the  heart  of  each  individual  man  and  woman,  that  I 
do  not  quarrel  with  any  visionary  when  in  his  intense 
longing  for  the  amelioration  of  the  condition  of  mankind 
he  lays  down  his  theories  as  to  the  necessity  for  radical 
change,  however  impracticable  they  may  appear  to  me. 

*'  But  this  is  the  question.  Here  at  our  shelters  last  night 
were  a  thousand  hungry,  workless  people.  I  want  to 
know  what  to  do  with  them.  Here  is  John  Jones,  a  stout, 
stalwart  laborer  in  rags,  who  has  not  had  one  square  meal 
for  a  month,  who  has  been  hunting  for  work  that  will  enable 
him  to  keep  body  and  soul  together,  and  hunting  in  vain. 
There  he  is  in  his  hungry  raggedness,  asking  for  work  that 
he  may  live  and  not  die  of  sheer  starvation  in  the  midst 
of  the  wealthiest  city  in  the  world.  What  is  to  be  done 
with  John  Jones  .? 

''  The  individualist  tells  me  that  the  free  play  of  the 
natural  laws  governing  the  struggle  for  existence  will 
result  in  the  survival  of  the  fittest,  and  that  in  the  course 
of  a  few  ages,  more  or  less,  a  much  nobler  type  will  be 
evolved.  But  meanivhile  what  is  to  become  of  John 
Jones .?  The  sociahst  tells  me  that  the  great  social  rev- 
olution is  looming  large  on  the  horizon.  In  the  good 
time  coming,  when  wealth  will  be  re-distributed  and 
private  property  abolished,  all  stomachs  will  be  filled,  and 
there  will  be  no  more  John  Joneses  impatiently  clamor- 
ing for  opportunity  to  work  that  they  may  not  die.  It 
may  be  so,  but  in  the  meantime  here  is  John  Jones  grow- 
ing more  impcitient  than  ever  because  hungrier,  who 
wonders  if  he  is  to  wait  for  a  dinner  until  the  social  rev- 
olution has  arrived.  What  are  we  to  do  with  John  Jones  ? 
That  is  the  question.  And  to  the  solution  of  that  question 
none  of  the  Utopians  give  me  much  help." 

Does  anybody  else  .?  The  sentimental  philanthropist 
is  ready  to  go  down  into  his  pocket,  or  rather  into  the 
pockets  of  other  people,  and  bestow    an  alms  upon  these 


THE  SAVAGES  OF  CIVILIZATION.  75 

poor  wretches.  But  any  one  who  has  had  the  sHghtest 
experience  in  work  among  the  poor  knows  that  almsgiving 
has  the  very  worst  possible  effect  upon  most  of  its  recipi- 
ents :  it  makes  them  lazy  and  wasteful,  and  is  wrong  in 
principle. 

He  that  is  able  to  work  and  will  not  work,  if  he  has  the 
opportunity,  ought  not  to  be  allowed  to  eat  other  people  s 
substance,  and  so  what  the  poor  should  be  given  is  work. 
If  this  cannot  be  given  them,  then  give  them  nothing,  and 
starvation  will  soon  produce  such  horrible  results  that  the 
community  will  thereby  be  more  effectually  aroused  than 
by  all  the  appeals  of  philanthropists  or  the  exhortations  of 
moralists.  Of  course,  I  do  not  mean  that  the  wealthy 
should  not  contribute  to  this  work  ;  far  from  it.  They 
should  give  and  that  largely  to  the  support  of  industrial 
schools,  orphan  and  foundling  asylums,  institutions 
for  the  aged,  the  insane  and  the  hopelessly  maimed, 
and  so  on,  until  the  material  conditions  of  the  friends  of 
such  unfortunates  shall  be  so  improved  that  they  can  and 
will  provide  for  their  own.  They  should  especially  con- 
tribute to  all  projects  advocated  and  fostered  by  scienlific 
philanthopists,  who  are  seeking  to  permanently  elevate 
the  characters  and  improve  the  conditions  of  the  poor. 

The  agencies  employed  in  this  great  work  confess  their 
inability  to  grapple  successfully  with  it.  Mr.  Riis  pays 
high  and  deserved  tributes  to  the  Children's  Aid  Society  of 
New  York,  the  Five  Points  ]\Iission,  the  girls  "College 
Settlement,"  the  Neighborhood  Guilds,  the  King's 
Daughters,  the  Board  of  Health,  and  the  various  efforts  of 
tenement  house  reformers  and  charitable  organizations. 

Millions  upon  millions  of  dollars  are  spent  annually  in 
New  York  city  alone,  and  yet  it  not  only  has  not  removed 
the  evils  in  question,  but  those  who  are  best  qualified  to 
speak  on  the  subject  sorrowfully  admit  that  the  agencies  at 
present  employed  cannot  remove  them.  Mr.  Riis  thinks 
that  "tenement-house  re/brm holds  the  key  to  the  problem 
of  pauperism  in  the  city. "  Yet  he  adds  sadly,  "We  can  never 
get  rid  of  either  the  tenement  or  the  pauper.  The  two  will 
always  exist  together  in  New  York.  But  by  reforming 
the  one,  we  can  do  more  toward  exterminating  the  other 
than  can  be  done  by  all  other  means  together  that  have 
yet  been  invented,  or  ever  will  be." 

Miss  Collins  in  New  York    and  ]\Ir.  White  in   Brooklyn 


^(i  TOPICS  OF  THE  TIMES. 

have  shown  not  only  what  can  be  done  in  the  way  of  tene- 
ment-house reform,  but  they  have  shown  that  the  tenements 
may  h^  profitably 'wd^xo^^di.  The  dwellers  in  these  miser- 
able dens  pa}'',  in  proportion,  as  high  rent  as  any  resident  of 
the  city.  The  owners  of  the  tenements  make  from  twenty- 
five  to  forty  per  cent,  on  the  money  thus  invested,  and, 
of  course,  they  oppose  and  will  continue  to  oppose  tene- 
ment-house reform.  They  can  make  more  out  of  them 
in  their  present  condition,  but  they  can  make  a  fair  profit 
upon  their  money  if  they  improve  their  tenements,  and  they 
should  \y^  forced  by  public  sentiment  and  the  law  to  do  it. 
It  is  no  charity  to  the  poor  to  demand  this,  but  simple 
justice.  They  have  to  pay  for  their  houses  and  they  should 
have  decent  residences.  These  words  of  the  New  York 
Tribune  are  sensible  and  suggestive  :  "When  private  en- 
terprise," it  says,  **  has  practically  solved  the  question  (as 
in  this  case)  how  to  do  certain  things,  a  great  step  in 
advance  has  been  taken.  Thenceforth  half  the  dependence 
of  the  defenders  of  abuses  is  gone;  thenceforth  the  friends 
of  reform  are  furnished  with  concrete  illustrations  of  their 
subject.  To  provide  decent  housing  for  the  poor  at  rea- 
sonable rents  is  obviously  the  first  consideration.  When 
this  has  been  done  for  some  of  the  poor,  the  way  to  ac- 
complish it  for  the  rest  lies  open,  and  the  question  then 
resolves  itself  into  one  of  means." 

Here  lies  the  strength  of  the  reform  position  at  present  ; 
and  while  unquestionably  the  difficulties  to  be  encountered 
are  still  manifold  and  great,  there  is  ample  room  for  en- 
couragement. While  the  tenement  will  probably  remain  a 
necessity  in  New  York,  owing  to  its  peculiar  location  on 
an  island,  in  Philadelphia  and  other  cities  it  is  not  and 
ought  never  to  be  allowed  to  become  a  necessity.  On  the 
contrary,  the  good  example  of  Philadelphia  in  furnishing 
neat  and  commodious  if  modest  houses  for  the  work-people 
ought  to  be  followed  everywhere.  But  after  all  has  been 
done  that  can  be  done  towards  providing  houses  for  the 
poor,  there  still  remains  that  vast  unnumbered  host  who 
have  no  work,  and  cannot,  therefore,  rent  a  single  room 
even,  but  must  go  to  the  cheap  lodging-house,  the  alley, 
anywhere  they  are  permitted  to  stretch  their  weary  limbs. 
What  shall  be  done  for  or  with  these  thousands.?  Only 
one  man  to  my  knowledge  has  made  even  an  approxi- 
mately practical  attempt  to  answer  that  question,  and,  of 


THE  SAVAGES  OF  CIVILIZATION.  77 

course,  he  has  been  overwhelmed  with  abuse  and  has  met 
with  all  sorts  of  opposition,  so  that  one  almost  hesitates  to 
mention  his  name  and  discuss  his  proposition.  1  refer,  of 
course,  to  General  Booth,  of  the  Salvation  Army,  and  his 
remarkable  colonization  plan.  This  plan  is  so  well  known 
that  it  is  unnecessary  to  do  more  than  glance  at  its  chief 
features.  These  are  three,  consisting-,  first,  of  a  colony 
planted  in  the  midst  of  the  slums;  secondly,  a  colony  in 
the  country ;  and  third,  a  colony  in  foreign  parts.  The 
last  named  has  less  interest  for  us  than  the  other  two  parts 
of  the  plan  have.  General  Booth  recognizes  two  great 
facts  :  that  the  personal  character  of  the  slum-dweller  must 
be  reformed,  and  that  in  order  to  return  the  masses  to  the 
country  whence  they  came  they  must  be  enabled  to  go 
there  and  to  earn  a  living  after  they  get  there.  His  city 
colony  would  serve  the  first  purpose.  He  would  put  up 
a  number  of  buildings  in  the  midst  of  the  slums,  some- 
what like  the  shelters  of  the  Salvation  Army,  where  the 
starving  could  get  bread  and  the  naked  clothing  and  the 
suffering  relief,  but  they  would  have  to  work  and  pay  for 
what  they  got.  A  number  would  be  employed  in  gather- 
ing waste  food  and  cast-off  clothing  from  the  kitchens  and 
closets  of  the  rich  who  would  give  for  this  purpose.  What 
an  enormous  amount  of  stuff,  now  wasted,  could  be  thus 
gathered  !  Then  there  would  be  factories  where  the  old 
clothes,  etc.,  would  be  "  made  over,"  and  these,  of  course, 
would  furnish  much  work  for  the  beneficiaries.  There 
would  be  a  labor  bureau  to  secure  work  elsewhere,  and, 
in  short,  there  would  be  a  scientific  application  of  the  most 
approved  methods  of  poor-relief.  Then,  as  the  rescued 
were  prepared  for  it,  they  would  be  sent  to  a  farm  owned 
by  the  managers  of  the  scheme,  where  they  would  find 
all  the  necessaries  to  successful  farming,  and  where  they 
would  be  thickly  enough  settled  to  prevent  the  misery  of 
solitariness.  He  only  asks  five  million  dollars  to  put  this 
plan  into  practice,  by  which  he  w^ould  provide  for  three 
million  poor  people.  England  spent  two  hundred  million 
dollars  in  freeing  her  slaves,  and  we  spent  as  much  in 
proportion.  Will  England  or  the  United  States  spend  the 
pittance  necessary  to  free  the  millions  of  white  slaves  at 
our  doors  ?  Judging  from  the  puerile  objections  raised  to 
General  Booth's  scheme,  v.-e  may  fear  that  the  public  mind 
and  conscience  are  too  ignorant  and  prejudiced  to  endorse 


78  TOPICS  OF  THE  TIMES. 

a  plan  that  does  not  satisfy  everybody.  Nobody  has  ven- 
tured to  deny  the  facts  stated  by  Gen.  Booth,  and  the  con- 
sequent necessity  of  a  gig-antic  effort  to  remove  the  evils. 
No  one,  so  far  as  I  know,  has  shown  that  this  plan  could 
not  be  put  into  operation  with  the  means  General  Booth 
asks.  All  the  objections  refer  to  \}c\Q\-^<^i\\o<l?>oi administra- 
tion of  affairs.  Some  bigots  objected  to  it  simply  because 
the  leader  of  the  Salvation  Army  originated  it.  It  is  the 
same  old  cry,  "Can  any  good  thing  come  out  of  Naz- 
areth.? "  Had  it  come  out  of  Canterbury  or  Parliament  it 
might  have  been  more  satisfactory  to  these  people.  But 
considering  that  most  of  our  good  things  come  out  of  Naz- 
areth, it  is  about  time  to  have  done  with  such  silly  objec- 
tions. 

Prof.  Huxley  refused  to  assist  in  promoting  the  scheme, 
first,  because  he  did  not  consider  the  Salvation  Army  a  fit 
instrument  for  the  accomplishment  of  the  work  ;  and, 
secondly,  because  it  placed  too  much  power  in  one  man's 
hands.  The  Archbishop  of  Canterbury  expressed  essen- 
tially the  same  objections.  '*Few  social  evils,"  says 
Huxley,  "  are  of  greater  magnitude  than  uninstructed  and 
unchastened  religious  fanaticism  ;  no  personal  habit  more 
surely  degrades  the  conscience  and  the  intellect  than  blind 
and  unhesitating  obedience  to  unlimited  authority.  Un- 
doubtedly harlotry  and  intemperance  are  sore  evils,  and 
starvation  is  hard  to  bear  or  even  to  know  of;  but  the 
prostitution  of  the  mind,  the  soddening  of  the  conscience, 
the  dwarfing  of  manhood,  are  worse  calamities."  As  if, 
forsooth,  the  minds  of  the  poor  wretches  in  the  slums  are 
not  already  prostituted  to  the  lowest  purposes,  their  con- 
sciences soddened  to  the  very  depths,  and  their  manhood 
entirely  crushed  !  Such  objections  are  characteristic  of  the 
agnostic  philosopher,  who  objects  to  instructed  and  chast- 
ened religious  "fanaticism,"  as  well  as  to  the  Salvation- 
ist's kind.  Prof.  Huxley  takes  his  stand  by  those  who 
say,  "  Because  a  thing  does  not  fully  satisfy  me  I  will  have 
nothing  to  do  with  it."  I  disapprove  of  the  Salvation 
Army's  methods  of  religious  work  as  cordially  as  Prof. 
Huxley  does,  and  I  know  that  religious  feeling  influences 
jNIr.  Booth  and  his  co-workers  in  this  movement ;  but  INIr. 
Booth  himself  over  and  over  again  shows  that  the  social 
and  the  religious  parts  of  his  work  will  be  kept  distinct. 
Certainly  they  can  be,  and  the  supporters  of  the  scheme 


THE  SA  VA  GES  OF  CI  VI LIZ  A  TION.  79 

could  see  that  they  were.  The  question  is  not  whether  the 
rehgious  fanaticism  of  the  Salvation  Army  is  a  good  thing, 
but  whether  the  methods  of  rescuing  the  "submerged 
tenth  "  from  the  ocean  of  misery  they  are  now  in,  proposed 
by  General  Booth,  are  rational  and  practicable?  No  one 
will  be  compelled  by  the  Army  to  adopt  its  religious 
opinions,  and  if  some  do  adopt  them  and  become  Salva- 
tionists voluntarily,  would  their  minds  really  be  more 
prostituted,  their  consciences  more  soddened,  their  man- 
hood more  dwarfed,  than  they  are  now  ?  Compare  the 
dwellers  in  Mr.  Booth's  barracks  with  those  on  the  Em- 
bankment of  London,  and  answer.  Prof.  Huxley  strains 
at  a  gnat,  and  swallows  a  camel.  He  appeals  to  the  worst 
prejudices  of  the  worst  bigots  in  the  Church  in  the  passage 
quoted. 

His  second  objection,  however,  is  more  rational.  "What 
guarantee,"  he  asks,  "  is  there  that,  thirty  years  hence,  the 
'general,'  who  then  autocratically  controls  the  action, 
say,  of  100,000  officers,  pledged  to  blind  obedience,  dis- 
tributed through  the  whole  length  and  breadth  of  the 
poorer  classes,  and  each  with  his  finger  on  the  trigger  of 
a  mine  charged  with  discontent  and  religious  fanaticism  ; 
with  the  absolute  control,  say,  of  eight  or  ten  million 
pounds  sterling  of  capital,  and  as  many  of  income  ;  wath 
barracks  in  every  town,  with  estates  scattered  over  the 
country,  and  with  settlements  in  the  colonies — will  exer- 
cise his  enormous  powers,  not  merely  honestly,  but  wisely.? 
What  shadow  of  security  is  there  that  the  person  w^ho 
wields  this  uncontrolled  authority  over  many  thousands  of 
men  shall  use  it  solely  for  those  philanthropic  and  religious 
objects,  which,  I  do  not  doubt,  are  alone  in  the  mind  of 
I\Ir.  Booth?"  To  the  same  effect  writes  the  Archbishop 
of  Canterbury.  "The  centrality  and  universality  of  the 
scheme,  and  the  dominion  to  be  exercised  over  it,  appear 
to  me  to  amass  difficulties  for  the  future."  These  sugges- 
tions, I  think,  make  it  plain  that  the  Salvation  Army  should 
not  be  the  only  agency  employed  in  this  work.  But  is  this 
a  necessary  part  of  ]\Ir.  Booth's  scheme  ?  Surely,  if  he  is, 
as  he  says  he  is,  "ready  to  sit  at  the  feet  of  any  who  will 
show  him  any  good,"  he  would  gladly  have  other  philan- 
thropic agencies  unite  with  the  Salvation  Army  in  this 
work,  and  these  agencies  could  and  would  limit  its  power. 
It  is  nothing  more  than  just  that  those  who  contribute  to 


8o  TOPICS  OF  THE   TIMES. 

such  a  purpose  should  have  a  voice  in  the  management  of 
affairs,  and  I  see  no  reason  vi^hy  the  Church  and  philan- 
thropic agencies  now  at  work  among  the  poor  could  not 
effect  a  basis  of  union  and  co-operation  with  the  Salvation 
Army  which  would  be  satisfactory  to  all  parties.  One 
danger  should  ever  be  guarded  against,  viz.,  the  influence 
of  politics.  Such  a  work  should  not  be  trusted  to  State 
management,  for  if  so  there  would  soon  be  as  great  a 
scramble  for  positions  and  power  in  it  as  there  is  now  in 
other  governmental  work.  But  let  it  be  observed  that  here 
again  the  question  is  not  as  to  the  inherent  reasonableness 
of  Mr.  Booth's  scheme,  but  simply  as  to  the  best  method 
of  putting  it  into  effect ;  and  surely  when  a  great  scheme 
like  this  has  been  conceived,  further  thought  and  discus- 
sion upon  it  will  perfect  it. 

The  New  York  Churchman  for  January  17,  1891,  made 
some  sensible  and  suggestive  remarks  on  the  scheme.  It 
stated  two  serious  obstacles  in  the  way  of  its  success. 
"First,"  it  said,  "it  is  a  fact,  which  it  would  be  idle  not  to 
recognize,  that  the  followers  of  Jesus  Christ  our  Lord  are  so 
wretchedly  divided  from  each  other,  and  in  spite  of  all  their 
boasted  tolerance  are  so  pettily  jealous  of  each  other,  that  it 
is  only  the  larger  souls  in  the  different  denominations  that 
can  sincerely  rejoice  at  good  done  by  men  belonging  to 
other  denominations.  In  the  discussions  of  Ger.eral  Booth  s 
scheme  that  have  come  under  our  observation  the  most 
humiliating  thing  we  have  had  to  observe  is  the  small 
spirit  of  sectarianism  which  has  arrayed  itself  against  the 
man  and  his  scheme,  and  the  rancor  with  which  both  have 
been  held  up  to  contempt."  This  is  sadly  true,  and  I 
know  of  no  severer  arraignment  of  sectarianism  than  this. 
To  think  that  millions  of  our  fellow-men  must  suffer  and 
die  because  the  followers  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  are  di- 
vided in  opinions  concerning  unessential  and  often  puerile 
doctrines  is  enough  to  make  angels  weep  and  devils  keep 
jubilee.  But  not  only  do  denominational  differences  pre- 
vent Christians  from  uniting  in  philanthropic  work  :  scien- 
tific or  philosophic  prejudices  frequently  influence  men  like 
Huxley  in  declining  to  endorse  such  work,  although  they 
say  they  think  that  the  one  redeeming  feature  of  the  Church 
is  its  social  and  moral  power.  But  the  Churchman  admits 
there  are  some  "  larger  souls  "  in  all  churches  who  can 
rise  superior  to  denominational  prejudices,  and  I  think  that 


THE  SA  FACES  OF  CI  VI LIZ  A  TION.  g  I 

the  number  is  large  enough  to  constitute  an  effective  work- 
ing force.  If,  for  instance,  the  work  were  committed  to  a 
general  board,  the  members  of  which  would  be  elected,  say, 
triennially  by  the  conventions  of  the  Church  and  the  Sal- 
vation Army,  I  am  sure  that  enough  large-souled  men  could 
be  found  to  fill  the  positions.  Surely  those  large  souls 
already  engaged  in  charitable  work  are  not  all  who  are 
willing  to  engage  in  it,  and  this  combined  force  might  ac- 
complish wonders  in  spite  of  the  evils  of  sectarianism. 
By  such  a  union  of  forces,  too,  the  ^o///zc<2/ importance  of 
such  a  social  power  as  any  one  organization  of  such  mag- 
nitude would  become  would  be  prevented.  The  different 
churches  concerned  could  effectively  say  to  each  other, 
or  to  any  power  that  would  attempt  to  manipulate  things 
to  a  political  advantage,  "Hands  off!  "  A  second  serious 
objection  to  the  Booth  scheme  cited  by  the  Churchman  is 
that  "it  proposes  to  do  a  great  police  work  without  police 
powers.  After  the  Salvation  Army  had  done  all  it  pos- 
sibly could  do  there  would  still  remain  a  mighty  multitude 
of  people  who,  in  spite  of  poverty  and  suffering,  prefer 
the  crowded  street,  and  the  gin  palace,  and  the  freedom 
of  vagrancy,  to  any  mode  of  life  that  the  Salvation  Army 
would  offer  them.  The  hand  that  shall  successfully  deal' 
with  that  multitude  must  be  the  strong  hand  of  a  Rum- 
ford,  armed  with  the  entire  police  powers  of  society,  and 
able  to  compel  submission  until  it  can  conciliate  and  secure 
willing  compliance.  The  evil  to  be  removed  is  a  social 
evil  of  enormous  magnitude."  Yes,  but  by  a  union  of  the 
mighty  forces,  social,  moral  and  religious,  such  as  is  here 
suggested,  the  necessary  police  force  could  be  commanded, 
and  so  again  we  see  the  necessity  of  union  and  co-oper- 
ation between   philanthropic  societies  and  workers. 

The  Churchman  also  says  that  the  Booth  scheme  fails  to 
provide  decent  houses  for  the  poor  in  the  cities  where  they 
must  live  in  order  to  be  near  their  work,  and  to  remove 
certain  economic  difficulties.  As  to  the  first  objection,  it  is 
met  by  the  proposition  to  continue  and  extend  tenement- 
house  reform,  and  this  could  be  included  in  the  Booth 
scheme  as  well  as  not.  The  second  objection  of  the  Church- 
man has  no  force  in  it,  because  it  rests  on  false  premises. 
"The  progress  of  modern  civilization,"  it  says,  echoing 
the  Tribunes  false  political  economy,  "tends  to  submerge 
the  great  mass  of  the  laboring  classes  in  deeper  and  deeper 

6 


82  TOPICS  OF  THE  TIMES. 

hopelessness."  Not  so  !  The  progress  of  rascality  and 
respectable  robbery  among  landlords,  monopolists,  corrupt 
politicians  and  the  so-called  upper  classes,  "  tends  to  sub- 
merge the  laboring  classes,'"  and  it  is  just  this  progress  of 
meanness  that  it  is  here  proposed  to  stop.  We  want  to 
give  the  working  people  a  chance  by  furnishing  oppor- 
tunities for  work,  and  then  production  will  be  increased, 
wages  will  rise  and  capital  become  more  abundant  and 
widely  and  equally  diffused.  The  introduction  of  machin- 
ery and  the  invention  of  the  steam  engine  have  no  doubt 
changed  the  whole  face  of  industrial  society,  but  it  should 
have  increased  the  prosperity  of  the  toiling  millions  by 
creating  more  wealth,  and  it  would  have  done  this  had 
not  that  wealth  been  grabbed  by  the  ''  upper  classes,"  those 
on  top  who  are  submerging  the  laboring  classes.  We  pro- 
pose to  put  machinery,  land,  and  the  other  means  of  pro- 
duction into  the  hands  of  the  work  people,  and  see  what 
they  will  do  with  it  all  We  believe  that  they  will  soon 
exterminate  poverty  among  themselves,  and  also  benefit  the 
wealthier  classes  by  rendering  their  position  more  secure. 
As  it  is,  they  now  sit  on  a  volcano  which  may  burst  under 
them  at  any  moment. 

For  such  reasons  I  endorse  the  Booth  scheme.  I  do  not 
think  it  a  panacea  for  all  our  social  and  industrial  ills. 
Indeed,  I  am  not  sure  that  it  would  produce  all  the  good 
that  even  I  might  expect  if  it  were  adopted  and  applied 
with  the  modifications  here  suggested.  But  it  rests  on  the 
right  basis.  It  proposes  a  reformation  of  individual  char- 
acter, and  it  further  aims  to  provide  work  for  those  who 
want  it.  It  proposes  to  send  many  of  the  city  poor  to  the 
country,  but  it  would  not  send  them  unprepared  to  an 
unprepared  country,  and  it  combines  many  if  not  all  the 
best  features  of  "scientific  charity."  Suppose  the  scheme 
is  tried  and  fails,  what  of  it.?  The  experiment  would, 
doubtless,  teach  lessons  which  would  be  far  more  valuable 
to  social  and  economic  reformers  than  the  few^  millions 
spent  upon  it.  The  Government  w^astes  more  money  in 
experimenting  in  building  gunboats,  etc.,  etc.,  than  would 
be  necessary  for  this  experiment  in  poor-relief.  I  there- 
fore say,  All  hail,  success  and  triumph  to  General  Booth  ! 
Thou  art  the  Good  Samaritan  !  And  may  the  good  Lord 
enable  you  to  teach  the  priests,  Levites,  Scribes,  Pharisees, 
and  hypocrites  a  lesson  which  the  ages  shall  confirm  ! 


POPULAR  IDEAS  OF  POVERTY.  83 


VII. 

POPULAR  IDEAS  OF  POVERTY. 

No  text  of  Scripture  has  been  more  misunderstood  and 
perverted  than  that  which  says,  "  Ye  have  the  poor  always 
with  you."  It  is  often  interpreted  as  if  Jesus  meant  not 
only  to  state  a/^c/,  but  that  He  meant  to  say  it  was  a  neces- 
sary and  u?iallerable  fact.  Such  interpreters  w^ould  have  us 
believe  that  the  poor  are  not  only  here  and  here  to  stay, 
but  that  w^e  cannot  even  partially  exterminate  poverty. 
Besides,  they  do  not  distinguish  between  absolute  and 
relative  poverty  ;  between  poverty  and  pauperism.  I  may 
be  poor  as  compared  to  Smith,  who  has  millions,  but  I 
may  be  rich  as  compared  to  Jones,  who  has  only  a  few  pen- 
nies. And  while  w^e  may  not  be  able  to  exterminate  rela- 
tive poverty,  we  can  certainly  do  much  towards  destroying- 
pauperism  and  elevating  the  poor  morally,  intellectually, 
and  materially.  Neither  poverty  nor  pauperism  is  neces- 
sary. But  both  popular  political  econom)^  and  philan- 
thropy assume  that  it  is,  and  therefore  seek  to  discover  and 
assign  the  causes  of  this  sad  state  of  things. 

First,  the  popular  political  economy,  as  stated  in  former 
chapters,  assigns  pressure  of  population  upon  the  means  of 
subsistence  as  the  great  cause  of  poverty.  This  theory  is 
called  the  Malthusian  Theory  of  Population,  after  its  orig- 
inator, the  Rev.  Thomas  R.  Malthus,  of  England,  who 
lived  during  the  first  part  of  this  century.  It  really  amounts 
to  the  Darwinian  "  Struggle  for  Existence,"  which  it  sug- 
gested, and  which,  in  turn,  has  contributed  to  its  support 
and  confirmation. 

It  is  found  in  the  writings  of  all  political  economists 
since  the  time  of  Malthus,  except  Henry  George's  and  a 
few  others.  It  is  well  and  moderately  stated  by  Prof. 
Richard  Ely,  of  the  Johns  Hopkins  University,  in  his 
"Political  Economy"  for  the  Chautauqua  University. 
"Let  us  suppose,"  he  says,  "that  there  are  only  two 
people  on  the  face  of  the  earth,  and  that  population  doubles 


84  TOPICS  OF  THE  TIMES. 

only  once  in  fifty  years.  At  the  expiration  of  three 
thousand  years  the  whole  surface  of  the  earth,  land,  and 
sea  would  be  covered  with  people  piled  one  on  top  of  the 
other  eight  hundred  deep." 

This  is  truly  appalling  !  It  reminds  one  of  the  man  who 
paid  the  blacksmith  one  cent  for  the  first  nail  he  put  in  his 
horse's  shoe  and  doubled  the  amount  for  every  other  nail, 
and  thereby  bankrupted  himself !  Vanderbilt  himself  could 
not  have  his  carriage  horses  shod  at  this  price  !  The  fact 
is,  no  such  man  ever  existed,  and  the  assertion  that  popu- 
lation tends  to  increase  faster  than  the  means  of  subsist- 
ence by  no  means  explains  the  existence  of  poverty. 

First,  it  is  one  thing  to  say  that  population  tends  to 
increase  faster  than  subsistence,  and  quite  another  to  say 
it  actually  does  so  increase.  As  long  as  tendencies  do  not 
become  actualities  we  care  very  little  about  them.  That 
the  tendency  in  question  has  not  become  an  actuality  is 
conclusively  proved  by  the  fact  that,  although  the  human 
race  has  been  in  existence  many  thousands  of  years — a  hun- 
dred thousand,  say  some  anthropologists — yet  there  are 
to-day  many  millions  of  acres  of  unoccupied  and  unused 
land,  and  the  earth  is  able  to  support  many  more  millions 
of  inhabitants  than  are  now  on  it. 

In  the  second  book  of  his  "Progress  and  Poverty,"  Mr. 
George  shows  that  even  India,  China,  and  Ireland,  with 
their  swarming  millions,  could  support  them  all  if  land  and 
the  means  of  production  were  properly  managed.  Cer- 
tainly, if  the  unoccupied  lands  of  Africa,  America  and  other 
countries  were  inhabited  and  worked  to  their  full  capacity, 
and  the  products  were  fairly  distributed,  there  is  no  reason 
whatever  for  believing  that  the  earth  could  not  support  its 
occupants. 

Even  ]\Ialthusianism  admits  that  the  alleged  tendency  of 
the  human  race  to  multiply  more  rapidly  than  the  means 
of  subsistence  never  becomes  an  actual  fact,  but  it  mis- 
states the  checks  to  the  growth  of  population,  and  this  is 
the  second  and  radical  defect  in  the  theory.  It  makes 
poverty  both  an  effect  and  a  cause.  It  says  that  popula- 
tion increases  more  rapidly  than  the  means  of  subsistence  ; 
this  produces  a  scramble  for  bread,  and  in  the  struggle 
many  are  killed  by  starvation,  and  thus  the  growth  of  popu- 
lation is  checked.  Now  I  believe  an  effect  is  here  assigned 
to  a  wrong  cause.     I  don't  believe  that  poverty  evergreatly 


POPULAR  IDEAS  OF  POVERTY.  85 

checks  the  increase  of  population,  except  in  very  rare,  ex- 
ceptional cases.  When  the  potato  crop  in  Ireland  fails, 
the  poverty  of  its  peasants  doubtless  destroys  some  of  them. 
When  the  famine  occurred  in  Israel,  those  who  were  not  so 
fortunate  as  Jacob's  sons  were  may  have  suffered.  When 
the  <jreat  fire  of  London  reduced  thousands  to  beggar}^ 
their  poverty  may  have  destroyed  them,  and  thus  checked 
the  increase  of  population  somewhat.  But  these  are  excep- 
tional cases,  and  cannot  prove  Malthusianism.  The 
grow^th  of  population  is  checked  by  entirely  different  causes 
from  that  assigned  by  Malthusians — by  wars,  and  pesti- 
lences, and  earthquakes,  and  disease,  and  death  from  old 
age,  etc.  These  are  the  checks  to  population,  and  they 
are  sufficient,  I  believe,  to  keep  the  number  of  the  earth's 
inhabitants  so  low  that  it  can  support  them  if  they  use  its' 
resources.  They  will  prevent  population  from  so  pressing 
upon  the  means  of  subsistence  that  starvation  must  mow 
men  down  in  order  to  save  others.  If  the  Creator  (or  Na- 
ture) sends  men  into  this  world,  He  gives  them  two  hands 
with  which  to  fill  each  mouth,  places  them  upon  a  planet 
where  they  may  find  ample  standing-room,  plenty  of  meats, 
vegetables,  minerals,  etc.,  for  their  use,  and  in  due  time 
He  removes  them  to  make  room  for  others.  It  is  not  neces- 
sary that  He  should  starve  them  out,  for  He  can  and  does 
remove  them  by  less  painful  methods,  and  omitting  starva- 
tion as  a  factor  in  disposing  of  men,  the  deaths  from  other 
causes  pretty  well  balance  the  births.  It  is  so  easy  to  blame 
God  or  Nature  for  man's  iniquities,  and  the  Malthusian 
theory  is  well  adapted  to  soothe  the  consciences  of  those 
who,  intentionally  or  unintentionally,  rob  the  poor  of  their 
just  dues. 

The  following  facts  cited  by  Mr.  George  tend  to  dis- 
prove this  theory.  * '  At  the  period  of  her  greatest  population 
(1840-45),"  he  says,  ''Ireland  contained  some  eight  mil- 
lions of  people.  But  a  very  large  proportion  of  them 
managed  merely  to  exist — lodging  in  miserable  cabins, 
clothed  with  miserable  rags,  and  with  but  potatoes  for 
their  staple  food.  When  the  potato  blight  came,  they  died 
by  thousands.  But  was  it  the  inability  of  the  soil  to  sup- 
port so  large  a  population  that  compelled  so  many  to  live 
in  this  miserable  way,  and  exposed  them  to  starvation  on 
the  failure  of  a  single  root  crop.?  On  the  contrary,  it  was 
the  same  remorseless  rapacity  that  robbed  the  Indian  ryot 


86  TOPICS  OF  THE  TIMES. 

of  the  fruJts  of  his  toil  and  left  him  to  starve  where  nature 
oiiered  plenty.  A  merciless  banditti  of  tax-gatherers  did 
not  march  through  the  land  plundering  and  torturing,  but 
the  laborer  was  just  as  effectually  stripped  by  as  mer- 
ciless a  horde  of  landlords,  among  whom  the  soil  had 
been  divided  as  their  absolute  possession,  regardless  of 
any  rights  of  those  who  lived  upon  it." 

Again,  speaking  of  man's  food-resources,  he  says  :  *'It 
is  from  the  vegetable  and  animal  kingdoms  that  man's 
food  is  drawn,  and  hence  the  greater  strength  of  the  re- 
productive force  in  the  vegetable  and  animal  kingdoms 
than  in  man  simply  proves  the  power  of  subsistence  to 
increase  faster  than  population.  Does  not  the  fact  that 
all  of  the  things  which  furnish  man's  subsistence  have 
the  power  to  multiply  manifold — some  of  them  many 
thousand-fold,  and  some  of  them  many  million  or  even 
billion-fold — while  he  is  only  doubling  his  numbers,  show 
that  let  human  beings  increase  to  the  full  extent  of  their 
reproductive  power,  the  increase  of  population  can  never 
exceed  subsistence  ?  "  Whether  this  fact  proves  as  much 
as  our  author  claims  or  not,  yet  it  is  quite  worthy  of  con- 
sideration. It  is  a  remarkably  wise  provision  of  nature 
that  the  sources  from  which  man's  subsistence  is  drawn 
should  be  thus  capable  of  multiplying  themselves.  IMore- 
over,  they  utilize  things  that  man  could  not  use  ;  and  if  it 
is  said  that  plants  and  animals  multiply  more  rapidly  than 
the  means  of  their  subsistence,  we  know  as  a  matter  of 
fact  that  "no  species  reaches  the  ultimate  limit  of  soil, 
water,  air,  and  sunshine  :  but  the  actual  limit  of  each  is  in 
the  existence  of  other  species,  its  rivals,  its  enemies,"  the 
least  of  which  is  not  man. 

Further,  unlike  the  increase  of  any  other  living  thing, 
the  increase  of  man  involves  the  increase  of  his  food.  Pie 
is  not  merely  a  consumer,  he  is  also  a  producer.  Beast, 
insect,  bird,  and  fish  take  only  what  they  find,  but  their  pro- 
geny can  be  increased  and  improved  by  man's  efforts,  and 
thus  he  may  increase  the  amount  of  his  food.  Of  course, 
the  "law  of  diminishing  returns"  from  the  cultivation  of 
the  land  is  cited  as  a  check  to  man's  efforts  to  increase  the 
amount  of  his  food.  This  "law"  simply  means  that  land 
after  a  certain  amount  of  labor  has  been  spent  upon  it,  and 
a  certain  quantity  of  produce  extracted  from  it,  begins  to 
yield  less  and  less  until  it  reaches  zero.     Or,   to  ]^ut  it  dif- 


POPULAR  IDEAS  OF  POVERTY.  Sy 

ferently,  land  that  produces  twenty-five  bushels  of  wheat 
per  acre  cannot  be  made  to  produce  fifty  bushels  by  doub- 
ling the  amount  of  labor,  but  will  yield,  say,  only  thirty- 
five  bushels  per  acre.  This,  no  doubt,  is  true,  but  as  long 
as  the  checks  to  the  growth  of  population,  just  mentioned, 
operate  to  keep  population  down  to  the  point  where  plenty 
of  land  may  be  had  which  does  not  require  such  extra 
labor,  there  is  no  cause  for  alarm,  and  at  present  it  seems 
that  as  this  planet  is  exhausted  by  old  age  and  use,  the 
human  race,  from  old  age  and  such  causes,  will  diminish 
pan  passu  and  so,  however  true  "the  law  of  diminishing 
returns"  may  be  in  theory,  there  is  no  prospect  of  its  being 
realized  in  practice  to  the  great  and  endless  misery  of 
man. 

The  question,  then,  is  this  :  Does  the  relative  power  of 
producing  wealth  decrease  with  the  increase  of  population  ? 
Consider  the  marvelous  growth  of  population  in  the  United 
States  during  the  last  fifty  or  a  hundred  years,  from  natural 
causes  as  well  as  from  immigration  and  the  hand  in  hand 
increase  of  wealth,  and  answer.  Remember,  too,  that 
while  the  New  World  has  thus  been  receiving  and  adding  to 
its  population,  certain  parts  of  the  Old  World  have  been 
gradually  depopulated.  The  rich  valley  of  the  Nile  once 
held  millions  of  people  where  it  now  has  only  thousands. 

In  what  we  know  of  the  world's  history  decadence  of 
population  is  as  common  as  increase,  and,  of  course 
those  sections  of  the  globe  which  are  depopulated  increase 
in  fertility  while  other  sections  are  supporting  earth's  in- 
habitants. For  millenniums  the  stream  of  population  has 
been  setting  westward,  but  the  time  may  come  when  it 
will  return  to  the  point  whence  it  started,  and  there  find  a 
house,  not  swept  and  garnished,  but  replenished  by  a  kind 
Providence,  and  thus  begin  its  majestic  march  over  again. 

At  any  rate,  the  Malthusian  theory  of  population  does 
not  explain  poverty,  because,  whatever  may  be  the  ten- 
dency of  the  human  race  to  multiplication,  this  tendency 
is  held  in  check  by  death  from  causes  other  than  starva- 
tion ;  the  resources  of  nature,  vegetables  and  animals, 
naturally  multiply  faster  than  man's  wants,  and  by  his 
efforts  may  be  even  more  rapidly  multiplied,  and  as  man 
becomes  more  and  more  civilized  and  elevated  in  tastes 
and  conditions,  his  reproductive  power  seems  rather  to 
diminish  than  to  increase.     The  old  adage  "A  rich  man 


88  TOPICS  OF  THE  TIMES. 

for  luck  and  a  poor  man  for  children,"  proves  this.  "  The 
proportion  of  bn-ths  is  notoriously  g-reater  in  new  settle- 
ments, where  the  struggle  with  nature  leaves  little  oppor- 
tunity for  intellectual  life,  and  among  the  poverty-bound 
classes  of  older  countries,  who  in  the  midst  of  wealth  are 
deprived  of  all  its  advantages  and  reduced  to  all  but  an 
animal  existence,  than  it  is  among  the  classes  to  whom 
the  increase  of  wealth  has  brought  independence,  leisure, 
comfort,  and  a  fuller  and  more  varied  life." 

It  would  seem,  therefore,  that  the  best  method  of  check- 
ing the  growth  of  population  is  not  starvation,  but  an  ele- 
vation of  man's  social,  intellectual  and  material  condition 
so  as  to  curb  his  mere  animal,  passionate  nature  and  de- 
velop his  spiritual  nature.  Let  it  always  be  remembered 
that  whatever  may  be  the  possibility,  of  the  human  race 
so  increasing  as  to  demand  more  food  than  can  be  got,  the 
actual  fact  is  that  "dX  present,  and  for  many  millenniums  to 
come,  poverty  is  attributable  not  to  "■  the  niggardliness  of 
nature,  but  to  the  injustice  of  society,"  not  to  necessary 
but  to  removable  causes,  and  any  instance  of  the  pressure 
of  population  upon  the  means  of  subsistence  that  may  be 
cited  among  earth's  inhabitants — in  India,  China,  Eng- 
land, Ireland  or  America — may  be  readily  and  correctly 
explained  as  due  to  "man's  inhumanity  to  man." 

Turning  now  from  the  explanations  of  poverty,  offered 
by  the  Economists,  we  find  popular  writers  and  expositors, 
especially  among  the  employing  class,  assigning  extrav- 
agance, drunkenness  and  laziness  as  the  chief  causes  of 
poverty  among  the  working  classes.  All  such  works  as 
Mr.  Samuel  Smiles's  ''Self  Help,"  "Thrift,"  "Character," 
"Duty,"  etc.,  assume  that  the  fault  lies  with  the  laborer 
and  that  a  reformation  of  his  character  is  all  that  is  neces- 
sary. Now,  I  certainly  do  not  undervalue  IMr.  Smiles's 
works,  nor  do  I  deny  that  extravagance,  drunkenness,  and 
laziness  have  much  to  do  with  poverty,  but  I  do  think  that 
too  much  is  attributed  to  them  and  certain  important  facts 
are  overlooked. 

First,  an  examination  of  the  reports  on  labor  furnished 
by  the  Government  annually,  or  a  perusal  of  such  works 
as  Mr.  Riis's,  Mr.  Booth's,  or  Helen  Campbell's,  will  show 
that  there  are  thousands  of  men  and  women  who  are  will- 
ing to  work,  anxious  to  work,  and  cannot  get  work  at  any 
price,  and  therefore  they  have  absolutely  nothing  to  econo- 


POPULAR  IDEAS  OF  POVERTY.  89 

mize.  It  is  absurd  to  ask  men  to  save  what  they  haven't 
got.  It  is  a  mockery  to  say  that  men  who  haven't  a  crust 
of  bread  or  a  shirt  should  "  lay  by  something-  for  a  rainy 
day."  Every  day  is  a  rainy  day  with  them,  and  the  clouds 
are  so  dense,  the  storms  are  so  severe,  that  it  is  impossible 
for  them  to  survive,  much  more  to  save  something. 

Then  think  of  the  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  women  in 
New  York  who  make  on  an  average  sixty  cents  a  day, 
many  of  whom  may  have  children  to  support ;  how  on 
earth  can  such  persons  "save"  anything  out  of  such  a 
pittance.?  But  even  among  the  better-paid  workmen  there 
are  excuses  for  their  alleged  extravagance.  I  remember 
once  hearing  a  clergyman  and  a  professor  of  political 
economy  discussing  this  question.  "Why,  professor," 
said  the  minister,  "it  is  the  extravagance  of  the  poor  that 
makes  them  poor.  I  met  my  hired  girl  down  the  street 
the  other  day  and  she  was  actually  dressed  so  finely 
that  I  did  not  recognize  her,-  and  when  she  came  home  she 
reproached  me  for  passing  her  without  speaking  to  her." 
"Well,"  answered  the  professor,  "don't  the  well-to-do 
classes  set  the  example  of  extravagance  to  the  poor  people.? 
Your  servant  has  discovered  that  a  fine  dress  is  necessary 
to  an  entrance  into  'society,'  and  hence  she  will  starve 
her  stomach  to  clothe  her  back."  The  clergyman  yielded, 
and  well  he  might,  for  the  lightning  struck  near  home, 
since  his  own  wife  and  wealthy  parishioners  set  the  evil 
example.  True,  the}''  were  more  able  to  wear  fine  clothes 
than  the  hireling,  but  the  latter  did  not  consider  this ;  and 
if  facts  are  considered,  it  may  be  found  that  many  are  able 
to  live  more  luxuriously  because  others  are  deprived  of  their 
just  dues.  The  very  question  is,  Why  this  discrepancy 
between  the  classes  .?  Why  should  not  the  faithful  worker 
be  able  to  wear  decent  clothes  and  set  a  bountiful  table .? 
One  fact  is  undeniable  :  extravasfance  is  not  confined  to  the 
poor  classes,  and  those  who  preach  the  Gospel  of  Economy 
should  address  themselves,  first  to  the  rich,  and  then  to  the 
poor.  If  this  is  done,  I  for  one  will  heartily  endorse  the 
preaching.  I  do  not  defend  extravagance  in  any  one  or 
any  class,  but  it  does  not  explain  the  existence  of  poverty, 
or,  if  it  does,  it  is  rather  the  extravagance  of  the  rich  that 
impoverishes  others  than  their  own  wastefulness. 

Then  as  to  drunkenness,  no  one  can  deny  that  it  pro- 
duces terrible   evils    and  suffering   among    the  poor,    but 


go  TOPICS  OF  THE   TIMES. 

neither  can  it  be  denied  that  poverty  itself  produces  intem- 
perance. Says  Prof.  Ely:  "While  intemperance  is  a 
monstrous  evil  and  cannot  be  too  earnestly  fought  against, 
we  should  not  fail  to  see  that  it  is  at  the  same  time 
both  an  effect  and  a  cause.  Go  to  our  crowded  cities  and 
great  industrial  centers.  Here  we  find  industrial  and  social 
conditions  which  force  us  to  believe  that,  until  they  are 
remedied,  we  can  look  for  no  lasting  growth  of  temper- 
ance or  strengthening  of  character.  On  the  one  side,  im- 
mense wealth,  with  its  temptations  of  pride  and  luxury  ; 
on  the  other,  crowded  tenements,  hot  and  noxious  in  sum- 
mer, always  loathsome  and  repulsive,  occupied  by  those 
who  do  not  know  whether  they  will  find  work  that  day  or 
not.  Their  condition  is  often  the  effect  of  their  former  in- 
temperate habits,  and  in  turn  it  drives  them  and  their  chil- 
dren into  further  depths  of  inebriety.  An  important  reason 
for  the  craving  for  intoxicants,  as  is  shown  by  one  of  the 
foremost  American  physiologists,  is  the  lack  of  sufficient 
food  or  of  a  sufficient  variety  of  wholesome  food,  and  es- 
pecially poorly  cooked  food.  These  and  many  other  facts 
with  regard  to  the  economic  conditions  of  our  day  admon- 
ish us  that  the  thoughtful  temperance  advocate  must 
embrace  in  his  efforts  both  temperance  and  industrial 
reforms. " 

Here,  again,  the  poor  compare  most  favorably  with  the 
rich.  Dr.  Ely  shows  that  the  social  clubs  of  working  men 
never  have  a  bar-room  attached,  and  labor  organizations 
foster  temperance,  while  rich  men's  clubs  almost  invariably 
have  bar-rooms  attached,  and  the  wealthy  classes  frequently 
promote  intemperance  among  the  poor,  especially  on  elec- 
tion days,  when  they  want  their  votes.  It  may  be  safely 
said  that  the  working  classes  are,  on  the  whole,  even  more 
temperate  than  the  "upper  classes,"  and  there  are  thou- 
sands of  poor  people  who  do  not  drink  liquor  who  yet  have 
to  struggle  for  dear  life.  I  have  little  patience  with  those 
who  cite  the  drunkenness  of  the  poor  as  the  cause  of  their 
poverty,  for  while  I  know  as  well  as  any  one  that  drunk- 
enness does  prevail  to  a  sad  extent  among  all  classes,  I  also 
know  that  many  are  ground  down  by  poverty  who  are 
even  ^' total  abstainers,"  and  it  is  for  these  that  we  plead. 
We  include  temperance  and  economy  in  our  programme 
of  social  reform,  as  well  as  other  things,  but  we  do  not 
attribute  all   poverty  and  suffering  to  two  or  three  causes, 


POPULAR  IDEAS  OF  POVERTY.  9 1 

nor  would  we  apply  one  reform  to  only  one  section  of 
humanity,  but  we  would  preach  economy,  temperance,  and 
righteousness  to  all  alike. 

Finally,  as  to  laziness  among  the  poor.  No  one  knows 
better  than  I  do  how  lazy  many  of  them  are.  Both  among 
the  blacks  of  the  South  and  the  whites  of  the  North,  I  have 
had  ample  opportunities  to  learn  how  careless  of  the  in- 
terest of  their  employers  are  many  working  people.  I  also 
know  how  ready  they  are  to  botch  their  work  and  how 
prone  they  are  to  attempt  to  lord  it  over  their  employers. 
I  do  not  in  the  least  palliate  any  of  their  numerous  faults, 
but  urge  as  strongly  as  any  that  they  must  be  remedied 
before  they  can  succeed.  Still,  it  must  be  admitted  that 
there  are  thousands  who  are  industrious  and  would  be 
faithful  in  their  work  if  they  could  get  it  to  do,  and  against 
them  the  charge  of  laziness  cannot  be  brought  as  an 
explanation  of  their  poverty.  But  the  great  question  is. 
Hozv  to  gel  these  idlers  to  work  ?  Denunciation  will  do  no 
good.  Either  we  must  be  content  with  inefficient  service 
or  we  must  adopt  some  plan  which  will  call  forth  the 
best  efforts  of  employes.  I  know  of  but  one  such  plan,  and 
in  lieu  of  a  better  I  shall  advocate  its  more  general  adop- 
tion, and  that  is  profit-sharing.  This  simply  means  that 
the  employer  will  pay  his  employe  the  nominal  market  rate 
of  wages,  and  over  and  above  this  will  give  him  a  share 
in  the  profits  of  the  business.  By  this  means  the  worker's 
self-interest  is  enlisted  on  the  side  of  the  employer  and  the 
result  is  more  vigorous  effort,  greater  economy  in  the  use 
of  materials,  and  greater  care  of  the  machinery  used. 

Now,  of  course,  the  opponents  of  profit-sharing  are  ready 
with  their  everlasting  "objections."  They  will  point  to 
the  few  attempts  made  in  this  country,  under  most  unfavor- 
able circumstances,  which  have  failed,  as  proof  positive  of 
its  impractical  and  "visionary"  character.  But  two  facts 
are  sufficient  to  my  mind  to  meet  any  such  objections. 
First,  I  am  sure  from  experience  that  the  principle  of  profit- 
sharing  is  right,  and  that  it  will,  under  favorable  condi- 
tions, work  well.  I  have  got  lazy  negroes  in  the  South 
(and  of  all  lazy  people  the  negroes  are  the  laziest)  to  do 
faithful  work  by  giving  them  a  share  in  the  crops.  The 
very  negroes  who  would  idle  as  soon  as  the  employer's 
back  was  turned  would  work  from  daylight  till  dark,  when 
they  were  "  working  on  shares,"     Moreover,  why  should 


92 


TOPICS  OF  THE  TIMES. 


labor  not  share  in  the  profits?  If,  for  instance  capital 
contributes  two  dollars  and  labor  gives  the  same  to  the 
production  of  a  pair  of  shoes,  and  they  are  sold  for  five 
dollars,  why  should  one  party  to  the  contract  or  transaction 
receive  all  the  profits?  Justice  would  share  the  profits 
equally  between  the  two. 

Secondly,  Prof.  Sedley  Taylor  of  England  has  made  a 
special  study  of  profit-sharing,  and  in  his  admirable  little 
work  on  this  subject  he  tells  us  how  the  system  was 
originated  by  a  French  house-decorator  in  1842,  and  has 
spread  over  Europe,  producing  most  satisfactory  results. 
"  Putting  together  the  most  recent  data,"  he  says,  "  I  shall 
be  below  the  mark  in  saying  that  one  hundred  continental 
(European)  firms  are  now  working  on  a  participatory 
basis.  The  principle  has  been  introduced  with  good 
results  into  agriculture ;  into  the  administration  of  railways, 
banks  and  insurance  offices  ;  into  iron-smelting,  type- 
founding  and  cotton-spinning  ;  into  the  manufacture  of 
tools,  paper,  chemicals,  lucifer-matches,  soap,  card-board 
and  cigarette-papers  ;  into  printing,  engraving,  cabinet- 
making,  house-painting  and  plumbing  ;  into  stock-brok- 
ing, book-selling,  the  wine  trade  and  haberdashery.  The 
movement,"  he  adds,  "is  making  still  further  headway, 
a  considerable  number  having  given  in  their  adherence 
during  the  last  four  years." 

The  benefits  accruing  from  participation  successfully 
practiced  he  sums  up  thus  :  "It  furnishes  to  the  workman 
a  supplementary  income  under  circumstances  which 
directly  encourage,  or  even  actually  enforce,  saving;  and, 
by  associating  him  in  a  very  real  sense  with  his  employer, 
it  arouses  aspirations  from  which  great  moral  improvement 
may  be  confidently  anticipated.  The  employer,-  besides 
sharing  in  whatever  surplus  profits  are  realized  by  the 
more  efficient  labor  which  participation  calls  forth,  obtains 
the  boon  of  industrial  stability  and  the  support  of  a  united 
corporate  feeling  elsewhere  unknown.  Independently  of 
these  advantages  to  the  two  parties  directly  concerned, 
the  customer  of  a  participating  house  finds  in  its  very 
organization  a  guarantee  for  enhanced  excellence  of  work- 
manship and  rapidity  of  execution.  The  fund,  of  course, 
on  which  participation  draws  is  the  surplus  profit  realized 
in  consequence  of  the  enhanced  efficiency  of  the  work 
done  under  its  stimulating  influence.     Such  extra  profit  is, 


POPULAR  IDEAS  OF  POVERTY. 


93 


therefore,  obtainable  wherever  workmen  have  it  in  their 
power  to  increase  the  quantity,  improve  the  qiiahty,  or 
diminish  the  cost  of  price  of  their  staple  of  production  by 
more  effective  exertion,  by  increased  economy  in  the  use 
of  tools  and  materials,  or  by  a  reduction  in  the  cost  of 
superintendence." 

The  justice  and  practicability  of  profit-sharing  would  be 
apparent  to  all  business  men  if  they  were  not  already 
wedded  to  a  different  system  ;  if  they  did  not  worship 
''competition''  and  think  that  "the  supply  and  demand" 
theory  of  wages  was  the  only  rule  of  action. 

As  to  the  failures  of  certain  attempts  at  profit-sharing, 
Prof.  Taylor  well  says  :  "In  order  to  infer  from  the  aban- 
donment of  a  system  the  unsoundness  of  its  central  prin- 
ciple, evidence  must  be  forthcoming  to  show  that  the 
evils  which  led  to  failure  were  necessary  consequences  of 
the  principle.  This  certainly  can  never  be  proved  with 
respect  to  the  unsuccessful  experiments  in  profit-sharing." 
Both  reflection  and  experience  prove  that  the  principle  is 
all  right,  however  often  misapplication  of  it  may  fail  to 
produce  good  results.  One  thing  is  certain  :  neither  false 
theories  of  political  economy  nor  denunciation  of  the  poor 
for  their  extravagance,  drunkenness  and  laziness  will  ever 
remedy  our  social  and  industrial  ills.  Only  the  Gospel  of 
Truth  and  Justice — only  a  frank  recognition  and  confession 
of  sins  on  both  sides  and  an  earnest,  energetic  effort  by 
both  parties  to  the  controversy  to  set  matters  right,  can 
produce  harmony  and  peace  and  happiness  between  cap- 
italists and  laborers. 


94  TOPICS  OF  THE  TIMES. 


VIII. 

REDUCTION  OF  THE  HOURS  OF  LABOR. 

The  conflict  between  capital  and  labor  is  artificial. 
Their  interests  are  naturally  identical ;  and  so  no  measure 
should  be  advocated  or  adopted  which  would  really  injure 
either  one  of  these  two  parties.  No  philosophic  economist 
will  consciously  and  deliberately  be  a  partisan  in  such 
matters,  and  if  he  advocates  a  reduction  of  the  hours  of 
labor,  or  any  other  industrial  reform,  it  will  be  because 
he  sincerely  believes  that  it  will  benefit  everybody.  At  any 
rate,  that  is  my  position,  and  yet  I  once  alienated  one  of 
my  wealthiest  parishioners  by  advocating  the  eight-hour 
movement.  He  not  only  quit  attending  church,  but  he 
antagonized  me  in  other  ways  ;  and  yet  I  honestly  aimed 
to  do  that  man  as  much  of  a  service  by  urging  a  reduction 
of  the  hours  of  labor  as  I  did  when  I  aimed  to  show  that 
the  wicked  might  have  another  chance  of  salvation  here- 
after. He  was  thoroughly  pleased  with  my  advocacy  of 
a  second  probation  for  sinners,  and  well  he  might  be  ! 
He  was  one  of  those  "  practical"  men  who  think  they 
know  it  all,  and  that  professors,  clergymen  and  statesmen, 
for  the  most  part,  are  fools  and  visionaries.  There  is  no 
greater  obstructionist  than  the  so-called  "practical  man." 
But  I  hope  to  show  to  unprejudiced  minds  in  this  book  that 
many  if  not  all  the  reforms  herein  advocated  would  be 
beneficial  to  all  parties,  among  which  is  the  reformation 
of  the  working  day. 

The  first  reason  assigned  for  the  reduction  of  the  hours 
of  labor  is  that  it  would  give  an  opportunity  for  work  to  the 
unemployed.  Mr.  Gunton,  one  of  the  most  enthusiastic 
advocates  of  the  eight-hour  system,  says  :  "The  immedi- 
ate effect  of  the  adoption  of  an  eight-hour  work  day  would 
be  to  reduce  the  working  time  of  over  eight  million  adult 
laborers  about  two  hours  a  day.     This  would  withdraw 


REDUCTION  OF  THE  HOURS  OF  LABOR.  gr 

sixteen  million  hours'  labor  a  day  from  the  market  without 
discharging  a  single  laborer.  The  industrial  vacuum  thus 
created  would  be  equal  to  increasing  the  present  demand 
for  labor  nearly  twenty  per  cent. 

"The  fallacy  of  this  argument,"  says  General  F.  A. 
Walker,  'Mies  in  its  assumption  that  the  reason  why  a  cer- 
tain portion  of  the  population  cannot  get  work  is  because 
those  who  are  employed  work  as  long  as  they  do,  say  ten 
hours  a  day.  But  what  are  these  persons  doing  during 
the  ninth  and  tenth  hours.?  Each  of  them  is  producing 
goods  which  are  to  become  the  means  of  paying  other 
laborers  for  their  ninth  and  tenth  hours  of  work."  This 
is  true.  But  would  it  not  be  better  that  these  workers 
should  be  given  less  work  and  more  leisure  for  other 
purposes,  and  allow  the  unwillin  gidlers  to  do  their  share 
of  the  work .?  It  is  hardly  just  to  njake  the  majority 
support  the  minority,  and  it  would  be  better  that  all  should 
work  eight  hours  a  day  than  that  some  should  work  ten 
and  others  none,  and  it  cannot  be  denied  that  a  reduction 
of  the  term  of  labor  would  furnish  work  to  the  unemployed 
even  if  there  are  (as  there  are)other  reasons  for  enforced  idle- 
ness besides  the  length  of  the  present  work-day.  The 
reduction  of  the  hours  of  labor  really  amounts  to  an  in- 
crease in  wages,  for  it  is  not  proposed  to  reduce  the  wages 
of  the  workmen  together  with  a  shortening  of  the  hours  of 
labor,  and  the  employer  therefore  would  have  to  employ 
a  larger  number  of  men  to  do  the  same  amount  of  work. 
This  is  why  the  employing  class  object  so  strongly  to  the 
shortening  of  the  work-day.  But  the  increase  in  wages 
which  would  thus  be  produced  would  prove  beneficial  to 
the  employer  as  well  as  to  the  employe  in  this  way  :  The 
unemployed,  w^hich  in  1886  amounted  to  about  one  million 
in  this  country,  would  be  furnished  work,  and  would  there- 
fore become  producers  of  wealth  instead  oi  parasites  on  the 
industrial  body,  and  also  customers,  directly  or  indirectly, 
of  their  employers.  It  is  because  employers  fail  to  recog- 
nize the  fact  that  their  workmen  are  also  their  customers, 
and  that  the  general  welfare  of  the  country  and  of  the 
working  people  means  their  welfare,  that  they  oppose 
many  industrial  reforms.  They  think  that  every  advan- 
tage given  labor  is  so  much  taken  out  of  their  pockets  ; 
and  yet  if  they  would  reflect  that  the  aforesaid  million 
of  unemployed    men    must    live    either  on  charity  or  by 


9  5  TOPICS  OF  THE  TIMES. 

robbery,  they  would  see  how  important  it  is  to  all 
parties  to  furnish  work  to  such  men.  What  they  would 
lose  by  a  reduction  of  the  hours  of  labor  they  would  gain 
by  an  increase  in  the  consumption  of  their  products  and  a 
reduction  of  charity  and  almsgiving.  Hence  their  loss 
would  be  only  apparent. 

Take  a  definite  instance  of  the  working  of  the  eight-hour 
system.  Suppose  a  manufacturer  of  agricultural  imple- 
ments were  to  adopt  it :  he  would  have  to  employ  a 
larger  number  of  workmen  to  do  the  same  amount  of  work. 
This  would  absorb  some  of  the  enforced  idleness  of  the 
community  into  producing  power.  Men  who  had  gone 
with  empty  stomachs  and  thinly  clad  backs  would  begin 
to  set  a  better  table  and  to  wear  better  clothes.  This 
would  create  a  demand  for  more  farm  products,  and  this 
in  turn  would  necessitate  the  making  of  more  argricul- 
tural  implements.'  Would  not  such  an  increase  in  wages 
be  beneficial  to  the  employer  as  well  as  to  the  workman  .? 
At  any  rate,  it  may  be  laid  down  as  an  axiom  that  no 
nation  can  afford  to  let  one-tenth  or  one-twentieth  of  its 
workmen  remain  idle,  much  less  can  the  employing  class 
permit  this,  and  one  of  the  greatest  benefits  derivable  from 
a  shortening  of  the  work-day  would  be  the  employment 
of  the  unwilling  idlers  who  are  now  a  burden  to  themselves 
and  the  community. 

It  is  sometimes  said,  in  order  to  reconcile  the  employing 
class  to  the  reduction  of  the  hours  of  labor,  that  by 
virtue  of  their  increased  efficiency  the  men  would  do  as 
much  work  in  eight  hours  as  they  now  do  in  ten.  But  if 
so,  there  would  "be  no  advantage  to  the  workmen  from 
such  a  change.  The  demand  for  labor  would  not  be  at 
all  increased.  If  one  hundred  men  would  do  in  eight 
hours  what  they  had  been  doing  in  ten  hours,  manifestly 
the  employer  would  have  no  need  of  an  additional  twenty- 
five  men  under  the  new  system.  I  think  the  efficiency  of 
the  workmen  would  be  increased  under  the  eight-hour 
system,  but  not  so  much  as  the  enthusiastic  would  have 
us  believe.  Besides,  although  their  efficiency  would  be 
so  increased  that  they  might,  if  they  chose,  do  more  work 
in  eight  hours  than  they  now  do  in  the  same  length  of 
time,  it  is  questionable  whether  they  actually  would  choose 
to  do  it.  The  real  advantage  of  the  reduction  of  hours  of 
labor  would  be  reaped  by  the  now  unemployed  men  of  the 


REDUCTION  OF  THE  HOURS  OF  LABOR.  97 

country,  and  the  improvement  of  their  social  and  material 
condition  would  redound  to  the  advantage  of  the  employ- 
ing classes  particularly  and  to  the  welfare  of  society  in 
general. 

A  second,  and  perhaps,  the  strongest,  argument  in  favor 
of  the  reduction  of  the  hours  of  labor  is  that  /'/  would  give 
working  people  ti^ne  to  improve  their  intellectual,  social  and 
moral  status.  One  man  has  as  much  right  as  another  to 
time  for  the  cultivation  of  his  mental  and  moral  nature, 
and  in  asking  that  the  work-day  be  so  determined  as  to 
allow  the  laboring  classes  an  opportunity  for  needed 
recreation  and  intellectual  improvement,  we  make  no 
request  for  charity,  we  base  our  claim  on  the  ground  of 
justice.  We  build  and  furnish  public  libraries,  art  galleries, 
museums,  etc.,  partly,  if  not  chiefly,  for  the  benefit  of  the 
laboring  classes,  and  yet  we  deprive  them  of  the  enjoy- 
ment of  these  things  by  requiring  them  to  work  so  long 
every  day  that  they  are  too  tired  to  walk  a  mile  or  two 
and  read  a  book  or  a  paper  in  the  evening.  Here  again 
the  adoption  of  a  short  work-day  would  redound  to  the 
welfare  of  the  employing  class  in  particular  and  to  the 
State  as  a  whole.  For  as  the  social,  mental  and  moral 
life  of  the  masses  was  improved,  they  would  naturally 
desire  to  live  in  better  style.  One  of  the  very  best 
means  of  promoting  the  material  welfare  of  a  class  or  a 
community  is  to  improve  its  mental  and  moral  condition. 
Hence  as  the  masses  advanced  in  education  and  refine- 
ment, they  would  demand  and  consume  more  of  the  good 
things  of  life,  and  thus  an  enlarged  market  would  be  given 
the  producer  for  his  goods.  Again  :  ignorance  and  a  low 
moral  tone,  are  always  dangerous,  but  they  are  especially 
so  in  a  Republic,  which  rests  on  the  people.  It  is,  there- 
fore, to  the  advantage  of  the  State  that  better  opportunities 
for  intellectual  and  moral  improvement  be  given  the 
masses. 

"  But,"  it  is  answered,  ''the  working  people  would  not 
spend  their  leisure  in  improving  their  minds  and  morals, 
but  in  dissipation  and  loafing."  As  a  matter  of  fact,  we 
have  seen  that  the  working  classes  do  spend  their  leisure 
quite  as  profitably  as  the  wealthy  classes  do  theirs,  and  so 
there  is  nothing  in  this  objection.  The  working  people  as 
a  class,  especially  those  who  lead  in  the  eight-hour  move- 
ment, are  really  anxious  for  intellectual  and  moral  improve- 

7 


98  TOPICS  OF  THE  TIMES. 

ment.  On  this  point  I  quote  General  Francis  A.  Walker's 
words.  He  is  rather  opposed  to  a  reduction  of  the  hours 
of  labor,  but  in  the  Atlantic  Monthly  for  June,  1890,  he 
said:  ''I  have  small  sympathy  with  the  views  so  fre- 
quently, and  it  seems  to  me  brutally,  expressed,  that  the 
working  classes  have  no  need  of  leisure  beyond  the  bare 
necessities  of  physical  rest  and  repose,  to  get  ready  for  the 
morrow's  work  ;  that  they  do  not  know  what  to  do  with 
vacant  hours,  and  that  a  shortening  of  the  term  of  labor 
would  simply  mean  idleness  at  the  best,  and  would,  in 
the  great  majority  of  cases,  lead  to  an  increase  of  dissipa- 
tion and  drunkenness.  Is  it  our  fellow-beings,  our  own 
countrymen,  of  whom  we  are  speaking?  It  seems  to  me 
that  this  talk  about  the  inability  of  the  working  classes  to 
make  a  good  use  of  leisure,  as  a  reason  for  not  letting 
them  have  any  ;  about  the  hours  that  might  be  gained 
from  toil  being  surely  spent  in  dissipation  and  riot ;  about 
keeping  the  laborer  at  work  all  day  in  order  to  keep  him 
out  of  mischief,  is  the  poorest  sort  of  pessimistic  nonsense. 
It  is  closely  akin  to  what  we  used  to  hear  about  slavery 
being  a  humane  and  beneficent  institution,  of  a  highly 
educational  character.  It  is  akin  to  the  reason  given  by 
despots  to-day  for  not  enlarging  the  liberties  of  the  sub- 
ject. 

''Work,  hard  work,  andagreat  dealof  it,  is  good  for  man. 
But  while  this  is  so,  we  may  well  desire  that  somewhat 
more,  and  much  more  of  leisure  and  of  recreation  should 
mingle  with  the  daily  life  of  our  fellows  than  is  now  known 
to  most  of  them.  It  is  a  pity,  it  is  a  great  pity,  that  work- 
ingmen  should  not  see  more  of  their  families  by  daylight ; 
should  not  have  more  time  .for  friendly  converse  or  for 
distinct  amusements  :  should  not  have  larger  opportuni- 
ties for  social  and  public  affairs." 

Doubtless  some  men  would  misuse  their  leisure,  espe- 
cially at  first,  just  as  the  newly-freed  slave  did,  but  the  vast 
majority  would  not,  but  would  spend  it  in  self-improve- 
ment and  the  promotion  of  their  families'  welfare.  It  should 
also  be  remembered  that  those  who  want  to  drink  and  riot 
now  find  plenty  of  time  during  nights  and  Sundays  and 
their  ''periodical  sprees"  for  it.  It  may  be  that  dissipa- 
tion is  promoted  by  the  long  hour  system,  and  hence  the 
reduction  of  the  term  of  labor  might  and  would  tend  to 
promote  temperance.     At  any  rate,  it  is  simply  fair  and 


REDUCTION  OF  THE  HOURS  OF  LABOR.  99 

just  to  working-men  that  they   be  allowed  more  time  for 
social,  intellectual  and  moral  improvement. 

History  proves  that  a  shorter  work-day  may  be  profit- 
ably adopted.  In  Europe  at  the  beginning-  of  this  century 
the  average  day  of  work  was  fifteen  hours,  but  it  has  been 
greatly  reduced  by  the  factory  legislation,  and  it  is  admit- 
ted by  all  now  that  this  was  a  wise  and  beneficial  action. 

In  Massachusetts  the  same  thing  has  happened.  In  both 
cases,  the  employing  class  and  short-sighted  economists 
and  legislators  opposed  the  reduction  of  the  term  of  labor, 
and  raised  the  cry  that  it  would  ruin  industry,  but,  as  Gen. 
Walker  says,  "a  positive  gain"  to  all  parties  has  been  the 
result. 

It  is  attempted  to  stay  the  movement  by  ridicule.  *'If 
a  short  work-day  is  a  good  thing,"  it  is  said,  "  why  stop 
at  eight  hours  .?  why  not  reduce  it  to  six,  to  four,  to  two,  to 
zero.?"  Well,  to  answer  a  fool  according  to  his  folly,  "If  a 
long  work-day  is  a  good  thing,  why  not  make  it  longer — in- 
crease the  term  of  labor  to  twelve,  sixteen,  eighteen  or 
even  twenty-four  hours  ?  "  But  this  is  not  argument.  Un- 
doubtedly there  is  a  natural  limit  to  man's  energy,  and  there 
is  an  economic  division  of  time.  It  may  not  be  that 
"eight  hours  for  work,  eight  hours  for  sleep,  and  eight  hours 
for  leisure"  is  a  perfectly  scientific  division  of  time,  but  it 
is  a  rough  draft  of  a  natural  and  economic  division,  and 
we  are  simply  aiming  to  discover  what  is  the  best  division 
possible. 

Moreover,  I  am  not  advocating  a  ufii/orm  reduction  of 
the  hours  of  labor  in  this  chapter.  On  the  contrary,  the 
work-day  should  vary  in  different  kinds  of  work.  Gen. 
Walker  well  says  :  "The  several  trades  and  avocations 
differ  so  widely  among  themselves  in  the  conditions  under 
which  they  may  be  pursued,  as  to  make  any  single  rule  the 
height  of  injustice.  .  .  .  One  industry  must  of  necessity 
subject  its  operators  to  intense  heat  or  to  intense  cold  ; 
still  others  are  pursued  in  an  almost  stifling  atmosphere. 
Others  allow  the  access  of  dangerous  particles  or  poison- 
ous gases.  On  the  other  hand,  there  are  industries  pursued 
by  hundreds  of  millions  of  our  kind  which  furnish  the  most 
benignant  influences,  or  at  the  least  require  their  laborers 
to  submit  to  no  condition  injurious  to  health."  Manifestly, 
therefore,  it  would  be  the  height  of  folly  to  adopt  a  uniform 
work-day,  and  in  advocating  a  reduction  of  the  hours  of 


lOO  TOPICS  OF  THE  TIMES. 

labor  I  do  not  urge  the  adoption  of  the  eight-hour  system 
in  all  kinds  of  work,  but  only  in  those  where  it  is  a  neces- 
sity and  would  prove  beneficial. 

How  shall  we  find  out  what  trades  can  advantageously 
adopt  a  shorter  work-day,  what  not?  What  means 
shall  be  employed  in  bringing  about  the  needed  reform  ? 
I  think  it  should  be  effected  as  far  as  possible  by  the 
efforts  of  employers  and  laborers,  and  that  an  appeal 
to  the  State  for  its  help  should  be  made  only  as  a  last 
resort.  I  have  no  prejudices  against  State  action  where 
it  is  absolutely  necessary,  but  I  behev^e  that  labor  and  capi- 
tal should  co-operate  cordially  with  each  other  as  much  as 
possible,  and  that  the  economise  and  industrial  functions 
of  the  State  should  not  be  unnecessarily  enlarged.  To 
quote  Walker  again:  "The  term  of  daily  work  which 
prevailed  at  the  time  when  the  greed  of  masters  was 
utterly  unrestrained  by  law  meant  the  degradation  and  de- 
moralization of  the  working  classes,  and  produced  a  hideous 
mass  of  disease,  vice  and  crime.  Out  of  such  a  slough  it 
is  the  right  and  duty  of  any  government  to  raise  its  people 
by  main  force,  through  the  strong  arm  of  the  law.  But 
when  laboring  populations  have  once  been  placed  upon 
ground  firm  enough  for  them  to  gain  a  fair  foothold  and  to 
get  a  leverage  for  their  own  exertions,  it  is,  according  to 
my  political  philosophy,  much  better  that  they  should 
thereafter  be  left  to  make  progress  to  successively  higher 
planes  through  their  own  strength,  skill  and  courage."  Of 
course,  in  those  cases — and  there  are  still  many — where 
the  greed  and  oppression  of  employers  are  degrading  and 
demoralizing  their  workmen  and  women,  producing  vice, 
crime  and  misery,  and  yet  they  will  not  heed  the  demands 
either  of  their  own  employes  or  organized  labor  for  shorter 
hours  and  better  conditions  of  work,  the  State  should  come 
to  the  rescue. 

We  do  not  believe  that  the  adoption  of  a  shorter  work- 
day will  usher  in  the  social  and  industrial  millennium, 
but  it  will  tend  greatly  to  elevate  the  material,  social,  in- 
tellectual, moral  and  religious  conditions  of  the  toiling 
masses,  and  therefore  redound  to  the  welfare  of  the  whole 
community. 


2 HE  NE GKO  IN  AMERICA,  i q  i 


IX. 

THE  NEGRO  IN  AMERICA. 

The  Race  Problem  will  probably  have  to  settle  itself. 
Why  discuss  it,  then  ?  it  will  be  asked.  For  many  rea- 
sons— chiefly  because  discussion  may  induce  us  to  rec- 
ognize the  course  of  natural  development  and  follow  it. 
The  following  facts  should  be  noted  and  admitted  :  First, 
the  negro  race  as  a  race  is  inferior  to  the  white  race.  This 
idea  is  not  due  to  Southern  prejudice  against  the  negro  (the 
writer  is  a  Virginian),  but  it  is  based  on  most  unquestion- 
able facts — facts  of  history  and  facts  of  science.  "When 
we  consider,"  says  Prof.  Alexander  Winchell,  "what  man- 
kind has  achieved,  these  humble  (black)  races  never  enter 
our  thoughts.  They  have  written  no  history  :  they  have 
achieved  no  results  for  history  to  record.  Their  thousands 
of  years  outhved  are  silent  and  dark  and  blank.  Not  an 
echo  of  a  former  generation  comes  down  to  our  apprehen- 
sion. If  we  learn  aught  of  their  past,  it  is  through  the 
studies  of  the  white  race.  If  we  unravel  the  mystery  of 
their  migrations,  their  affinities  or  their  origin,  it  is  by 
studying  their  zoological  characters  and  their  fossil  remains, 
as  we  investigate  the  natural  history  of  the  horse  or  the  pig. 
For  all  which  they  have  achieved,  this  planet  would  have 
remained  in  the  wildness  and  ruggedness  of  Nature." 

To  the  same  effect  wrote  Theodore  Parker — that  great 
aboHtionist  :  ' '  The  Caucasian  "  (he  says)  ' '  differs  from  all 
others  :  he  is  humane,  he  is  civilized  and  progresses.  He 
conquers  with  his  head  as  well  as  with  his  hand.  It  is  in- 
tellect, after  all,  that  conquers,  not  the  strength  of  a  man's 
arm.  The  Caucasian  has  often  been  master  of  the  other 
races — never  their  slave.  He  has  carried  his  religion  to 
other  races,  but  never  taken  theirs.  In  history  all  relig- 
ions are  of  Caucasian  origin.  All  the  great  limited  forms 
of  monarchies  are  Caucasian.  Republics  are  Caucasian. 
All  the  great  sciences  are  of  Caucasian  origin.     All  inven- 


I02  TOPICS  OF  THE  TIMES. 

tions  are  Caucasian — literature  and  romance  come  from  the 
same  stock  :  all  great  poets  are  of  Caucasian  origin — 
Moses,  Luther,  Jesus  Christ,  Zoroaster,  Buddha,  Pythago- 
ras were  Caucasians.  No  other  race  can  bring  up  to  mem- 
ory such  celebrated  names  as  the  Caucasian.  The  Chinese 
philosopher  Confucius  is  an  exception.  To  the  Caucasian 
belong  the  Arabian,  Persian,  Hebrew,  Egyptian,  and  all 
the  European  nations  are  descendants  of  the  Caucasian 
race."  This  is  not  the  utterance  of  the  white  man's  pride. 
It  is  simply  a  statement  of  facts.  In  the  light  of  the  great 
discoveries  of  Livingstone,  Stanley  and  other  African  ex- 
plorers, it  is  absurd  to  say  that  the  assertion  of  negro  inferi- 
ority is  due  to  Southern  prejudice.  It  is  equally  foolish  to 
attribute  this  inferiority  to  lack  of  opportunity,  or  to  the 
enslavement  of  the  negro.  All  Africa  protests  !  It  is  now 
known  to  be  one  of  the  finest  countries  on  the  globe,  and 
there  is  no  more  reason,  so  far  as  his  surroundings  are  con- 
cerned, why  the  African  should  not  have  progressed  than 
there  is  why  the  people  of  India  or  Europe  should  not  have 
advanced.  '  The  latter  have  established  great  empires  and 
promulgated  systems  of  philosophy  and  religion  which  are 
the  wonder  of  the  human  mind,  and  yet  their  dark-skinned 
brethren  across  the  Nile  and  around  the  great  inland  lakes 
of  Africa  are  sunk  in  such  an  abyss  of  degradation  as  to 
win  for  their  country  the  name  of  the  "Dark  Continent." 
It  is  dark  as  regards  the  character  and  civilization  of  its 
natives,  yet  the  land  is  a  ''goodly  land."  Why  not  admit, 
then,  the  natural  inferiority  of  the  negro,  and  not  either  try 
to  tickle  his  vanity  by  making  him  out  to  be  what  he  is 
not,  or  degrade  the  white  man  or  denounce  him  because 
he  contends  for  his  birthright }  He  is  not  the  friend  of 
the  negro  who  does  this.  Again,  Science  proves  that  the 
negro  is  inferior  to  the  white  man.  First  of  all  his  physi- 
cal o\:g3.\\\sm  is  seen  to  be  more  like  the  animal's  than  is 
the  white  man's.  Prof.  Winchell  and  others  show  by  com- 
parisons and  measurements  that  the  shape  of  the  head,  the 
brain-stuff,  the  length  of  the  arms,  the  tissue  of  the  skin, 
etc.,  of  the  negro  are  decidedly  inferior  to  the  white  man's. 
In  mental  power,  also,  he  is  inferior.  He  possesses  a 
strong  curiosity  to  gaze  at  new  sights,  but  it  is  the  curiosity 
of  the  child.  He  is  almost  incapable  of  forming  abstract 
conceptions,  and  hence  we  never  hear  of  his  producing 
any  great  original   work   in   mathematics   or  philosopny. 


THE  NEGRO  IN  AMERICA.  103 

His  imaginative  and  aesthetic  powers  are  likewise  feeble, 
and  poetry,  sculpture  and  painting-  owe  little  or  nothing  to 
negro  genius.  His  moral  and  religious  sentiments  are  even 
weaker  than  his  mental  powers.  Prof.  Winchell  says, 
rather  strongly,  that  "negro  worship  is,  for  the  most  part, 
a  brainless  voluptuousness  of  religious  emotion."  An  old 
colored  preacher  once  said  to  his  congregation:  "If 
you'll  jes'  jine  de  Church — 

*'  *  You  may  rip  and  t'yar, 
You  kin  cuss  and  swar, 
But  you  jess  as  shuah  of  heaven 
As  ef  you  done  d'yar  ! '  " 

This  shows  that  the  negro's  religion  is  more  emotional 
than  rational,  whereas  the  contrary  is  true  of  the  white 
man's  worship.  I  suppose  that  few  intelligent  people  will 
have  the  hardihood  to  maintain  that  the  negro  race  as 
a  race  is  either  intellectually  or  religiously  as  far  ad- 
vanced as  the  white  race,  however  highly  developed 
individual  negroes  may  be,  and  however  degraded  cer- 
tain whites  may  be.  Even  Senator  Ingalls,  in  a  speech 
in  the  Senate  in  February,  1890,  admitted  parentheti- 
cally, the  superiority  of  the  white  man  over  the  negro. 
"Mr.  Frederick  Douglass"  (he  said),  "the  most  illustrious 
living  representative  of  his  race  is  greater,  I  think,  by  his 
Caucasian  re-enforcement  than  by  his  African  blood." 
Mr.  Douglass  himself  seems  to  have  thought  the  same, 
since  he  married  a  white  woman.  Now,  this  contention 
that  the  negro  is  naturally  inferior  to  the  white  man 
ought  not  to  offend  the  former,  since  it  is  not  prompted 
by  Caucasian  conceit  but  proved  by  facts,  and  since  we  are 
both  derived  from  the  lower  animal.  The  white  man  has 
merely  got  a  little  farther  away  from  his  ancestral  home 
than  his  black  brother  has,  but  they  sprang  from  one  stock. 
The  writer  agrees  with  Huxley,  Tylor  and  other  physiolo- 
gists that  there  is  no  reason  to  believe  that  mankind  sprang 
originally  from  more  than  one  pair.  Nevertheless,  there 
are  remarkable  varieties  of  man  as  there  are  varieties  of 
other  animals. 

There  are  many  varieties  of  pigeons,  for  instance,  yet 
Darwin  and  others  have  shown  that  all  these  different  sorts 
of  pigeons  are  derived  from  the  Rock  Pigeon.  So  God 
hath  undoubtedly  made  of  one  blood  all  nations  of  men 


I04  TOPICS  OF  THE  TIMES. 

upon  earth,  but  there  are  many  branches  of  the  genea- 
logical tree.  The  negro  is  a  lower  branch.  But  what  then  ? 
Why,  it  is  urged  by  a  certain  class  of  statesmen,  "No  in- 
ferior race  should  be  allowed  to  rule  a  superior  race  ;  and 
therefore  the  negro  should  be  excluded  from  political 
office  and  power."  The  conclusion,  I  answer,  does  not 
follow  from  the  premise.  The  negro  is  inferior  to  the 
white  man,  but  he  is  not  so  inferior  that  he  should 
be  made  either  his  political  or  chattel  slave.  The 
Southern  negro  has  shown  himself  during  the  last 
twenty-five  years,  capable  of  improve 7?ie7i I,  and  many 
negroes  compare  very  favorably  with  the  whites  in  intelli- 
gence and  education — witness  Ex-Senator  Bruce,  Freder- 
ick Douglass,  etc.  True,  these  may  be  exceptions,  and  their 
superiority  over  their  brethren  may  be  largely  due  to  the 
Caucasian  blood  flowing  through  their  veins  ;  still  these 
men  are  classed  among  the  negroes,  and  they  represent  a 
large  number  who  are  competent  (or  may  easily  be  made 
competent)  to  take  part  in  political  affairs.  Moreover,  there 
are  pure  Africans  who  have  shown  themselves  capable  of 
high  intellectual,  social,  and  moral  development.  The 
Rev.  Alexander  Crummel,  D.  D.  of  Washington  City,  a 
graduate  of  Oxford  University,  England,  is  a  striking  ex- 
ample. He  is  a  scholar  and  a  gentleman  ;  and  while  he 
may  be  an  exception  to  the  majority  of  his  people,  yet 
such  instances  prove  that  a  great  deal  of  the  talk  about 
negro  inferiority  being  a  sufficient  reason  for  the  negro's 
exclusion  from  political  power  is  simply  demagogical  clap- 
trap. Let  the  inferiority  of  the  negro  race  as  a  race  be 
admitted,  or  even  insisted  upon,  as  has  been  done  above, 
yet  there  are  many,  many  individuals  (black  or  mulatto) 
among  the  American  negroes  who  are  competent  to  ex- 
ercise political  power,  and  there  are  myriads  of  them  who 
may  be  made  competent.  Hence  the  American  Negro 
should  be  represented  by  members  of  his  own  race  in  the 
Government.  Whether  all  negroes  should  be  allowed  to 
vote  will  be  considered  further  on. 

A  second  fact  which  should  be  admitted  is  that  by  reason 
of  negro  inferiority,  tlie  amalgamation  of  the  blacks  and  the 
whites  must  be  condemned,  because  it  would  injure 
both  races.  Two  witnesses  to  the  truth  of  this  are  all  that 
need  be  brought  forward.  Prof.  Winchell  gives  the  result 
of  the  observation   of  a  colored  picnic  party.    "Here"  (he 


THE  NEGRO  IN  AMERICA.  1 05 

says)  "  were  both  sexes— all  ages,  from  the  in!ant  hi  arms 
to  the  aged,  and  all  hues,  from  the  darkest  black  to  a  color 
approaching  white.  There  was  710  old  mulatto  amojig  them, 
though  there  were  several  old  negroes,  and  many  fine 
looking  mulattoes,  of  both  sexes,  evidently  Wi^  first  offspring 
from  the  pure  races.  Then  came  the  youths  and  children 
removed  one  generation  farther  from  the  original  stocks  ; 
and  here  could  be  read  the  sad  truth  at  a  glance.  While 
the  little  blacks  were  agile  and  healthy-looking,  the  little 
mulattoes,  youths  and  young  ladies,  were  sickly,  feeble, 
thin,  with  frightful  scars  and  skin  diseases  and  scrofula 
stamped  on  every  feature  and  every  visible  part  of  the 
body.  Here  was  hybridity  of  human  races,  under  the 
most  favorable  circumstances  of  worldly  condition  and 
social  position  (for  these  were  Northern  negroes),  and  yet 
it  would  be  difficult,  and  even  impossible,  to  have  selected 
from  the  abodes  of  crime  and  poverty  more  diseased  and 
debilitated  individuals  than  were  presented  by  this  acci- 
dental assemblage  of  the  victims  of  a  broken  law  of 
nature." 

This,  and  much  more  like  it,  was  written  in  reply  to  a 
remarkable  article  in  the  Princeton  Review,  Nov.,  1878,  by 
the  Rev.  Canon  Rawlinson,  of  England,  who  there  advo- 
cated the  amalgamation  of  the  white  and  the  black  races 
in  this  country. 

Senator  Ingalls,  in  the  speech  already  referred  to,  said  : 
"There  is  no  natural  affinity  between  the  races,  and  this 
solution  of  the  problem  (amalgamation)  is  impossible,  and 
in  my  opinion  would  be  most  deplorable.  Events  have 
shown  that  the  relations  between  the  sexes  in  the  time  of 
slavery  were  compulsory,  and  have  disappeared  with  free- 
dom. The  hybrids  were  the  product  of  white  fathers  and 
black  mothers,  and  seldom  or  never  of  black  fathers  and 
white  mothers,  and  the  inference  from  this  result  ethno- 
logically  is  conclusive  of  that  question.  Such  a  solution ,  in 
my  judgment,  would  perpetuate  the  vices  of  both  races 
and  the  virtues  of  neither.  There  is  no  blood-poison  so 
fatal  as  adulteration  of  race." 

This  is  written  not  because  I  believe  that  there  is  the 
slightest  possibility  of  solving  the  race  problem  by  the 
amalgamation  of  the  two  races,  but  because  it  may  pos- 
sibly tend  to  prevent  some  people  from  following  the-evil 
example  of  others,   and  either  marrying  or  illegitimately 


Io6  TOPICS  OF  THE  TIMES. 

cohabiting  with  negroes.  It  may  be  true — let  us  sincerely 
hope  that  it  is  true — that  "  the  whites  in  the  South  are  get- 
ting whiter  and  the  blacks  blacker,"  yet  even  so  there  is 
still  a  most  deplorable  amount  of  illegitimate  intercourse 
between  the  sexes  among  the  whites  and  the  negroes.  Of 
course,  this  is  mainly  due  to  lust  and  passion,  but  some 
superficial  thinkers  may  complacently  look  upon  this  breach 
of  natural  law  as  the  beginning  of  the  solution  of  the  race 
problem.  Let  the  aforementioned  facts  disabuse  their  mind 
of  this  foolish  and  dangerous  notion  ! 

A  third  fact  which  must  be  admitted  is  that  ihe  negro  is 
here  to  stay.  It  is  absurd  to  talk  about  transferring,  or  in- 
ducing him  to  emigrate,  to  Africa  ;  he  will  not  go,  and  even 
if  he  would  it  would  be  wrong  to  force  him  to  do  so.  On 
this  point  I  quote  the  words  of  that  eminent  Southerner, 
George  W.  Cable,  from  an  able  speech  which  he  delivered 
in  Feb.  1890,  before  the  Massachusetts  Club  of  Boston. 
**  The  most  irrational  scheme  of  all  "  (he  said)  ''  is  that  em- 
bodied in  the  bill"  (then  before  the  Senate)  "for  the  deporta- 
tion of  negroes  to  Africa.  The  graceful  arguments  of  its  ad- 
vocates in  the  Senate  have  been  fully,  ably,  brilliantly 
answered  in  the  Senate,  and  there  is  no  excuse  for  more  than 
a  word  to  the  point  here.  The  early  admissions  and  confes- 
sions of  Abraham  Lincoln  have  been  much  used  in  this  de- 
bate by  excellent  men  who  still  repudiate  and  antagonize 
the  conclusions  of  his  latest  wisdom  as  they  once  did  his 
earlier.  Let  us  in  that  wonderful  spirit  of  more  than  Wash- 
ingtonian  generosity  which  made  him  impregnable  and 
irresistible  in  debate  make  every  supposition  of  the  advo- 
cates of  deportation  that  can  be  made.  Say  the  bill  is  found 
to  be  not  unconstitutional  :  that  hundreds  of  thousands  of 
negroes  zf;^/z^  to  go  ;  and  that  Southern  white  men  generally 
will  let  them  go  despite  the  palpable  fact  that  the  men 
most  likely  to  go  will  be,  to  use  an  old  Southern  word,  the 
most  'likely'  men  ;  the  men  of  health,  strength,  self-reli- 
ance, enterprising  ;  and  despite  again  the  fact  that  no  large 
emigration  can  take  place  without  carrying  away  millions 
of  ready  money  with  it.  Every  100,000  of  European 
immigrants  to  this  country  brings  about  $8,000,000  ready 
money  with  it.  The  industrial  value  of  every  100,000 
unskilled  laborers  is  |8o,ooo,ooo.  Is  a  white  immigration 
likely  to  make  up  such  losses  }  Let  us  suppose  even  this, 
although  no  one  ever  yet  heard  of  one  set  of  emigrants 


THE  NEGRO  IN  AMERICA.  107 

pouring  into  a  country  from  which  a  poorer  set  was  pour- 
ing out,  and  although  if  they  will  come  at  all  there  is  abun- 
dance of  room  for  them  now,  without  deporting  a  single 
negro.  What  shall  we  say  ?  We  say  pass  your  bill ;  get 
your  ships  ready  ;  proclaim  free  passage  to  whosoever 
will  accept  it ;  only  let  there  be  no  compulsion.  We  are 
branded  as  a  whole  nation  with  our  fathers'  sin  of  bringing 
these  people  here  ;  let  us  not  now  add  to  that  our  own 
sin  of  driving  them  back.  Therefore,  no  compulsions. 
But  the  land  is  full  of  compulsions.  The  main  argu- 
ment for  their  going  is  that  we  are  making  their  stay 
here  intolerable  to  them.  Before  we  buy  or  hire  one  ship, 
whether  these  compulsions  are  in  South  Carolina  or 
Mississippi,  Illinois,  Ohio  or  Massachusetts,  let  the  com- 
pulsions be  removed.  When  State  and  Federal  Govern- 
ments have  exhausted,  as  neither  has  yet  done,  all  their 
power  of  legislation  and  police  to  make  the  negro  in 
America  as  free  as  the  white  man,  then,  if  the  negro  cannot 
be  content  and  the  people  choose  to  bear  the  expense 
of  his  deportation,  let  the  folly  be  charged  to  him,  of 
leaving  a  free  land  to  which  better  men  were  glad  to 
come  and  fill  his  voided  place.  But  let  this  nation  never 
again  open  the  sacred  Scriptures  on  Independence  day, 
or  on  the  birthday  of  Washington  lift  up  its  hands  to  God, 
if  as  matters  now  stand,  we  provide  money  or  ships  for 
the  flight  back  to  Africa  of  the  victims  of  our  own  tyran- 
nies. This  is  not  the  way  to  settle,  but  only  to  dela,y 
and  hinder  the  settlement  of  the  negro  question." 

This  is  refreshing.  Some  of  us,  thank  Heaven,  have  a 
little  moral  sense,  a  little  conscience  left,  and  we  feel  that 
we  owe  certain  duties  to  "the  victims  of  our  own  tyran- 
nies," which  cannot  be  discharged  by  shipping  them 
back  to  the  benighted  land  from  which  we  stole  them 
away. 

A  fourth  fact  should  be  admitted,  namely,  not  only  is 
the  negro  here  to  stay,  but  his  chief  place  of  residence  must 
he  in  the  South. 

In  The  Arena  magazine  for  June,  1890  the  Hon.  Wm. 
C.  P.  Brekenridge  M.C.  advocated  in  an  interesting  article 
on  the  Race  Question,  the  diffusion  of  the  negroes  "through 
the  Western  ?nd  Northern  S^  tes  as  "the  best  solution 
of  the    problem."     But   with    all   due   deference    to   this 


Io8  TOPICS  OF  THE  TIMES. 

honorable  gentleman  and  able  statesman,  I  venture  to  . 
say  nature  is  against  his  proposition.  At  one  time  negroes 
lived  in  New  England,  but  "slavery"  (says  Senator 
Ingalls  )  "  retired  from  the  valleys  of  the  Merrimac,  the  Con- 
necticut, and  the  Hudson,  to  the  Potomac  and  Southward 
by  the  operation  of  social,  economic  and  natural  laws, 
and  not  through  the  superior  morality  of  those  who  de- 
fended the  Union "  against  the  Southern  confederates. 
*'The  conscience  of  new  England,''  adds  the  Senator  (and 
his  words  should  be  pondered  by  certain  new  Englanders) 
''  was  never  thoroughly  aroused  to  the  immorality  of  Afri- 
can slavery  until  it  ceased  to  be  profitable  ;  and  the  North 
did  not  finally  determine  to  destroy  the  system  until  con- 
vinced that  its  continuance  threatened,  not  only  their 
industrial  independence  but  their  political  supremacy." 
These  words  might  be  used  with  good  effect  against  cer- 
tain schemes  often  advocated  to  secure  the  political  su- 
premacy of  the  negro  in  the  South.  But  I  quote  them  to 
show  that  candid  Northerners  admit  that  other  considera- 
tions than  moral  and  natural  reasons  influence  many  men 
in  advocating  negro  supremacy  in  the  South. 

The  negro  takes  to  warm  latitudes  as  a  duck  does  to 
water,  and  while  a  good  many  of  the  blacks  may  be  in- 
duced to  go  West,  especially  Southwest,  yet  we  cannot 
count  on  such  migration  for  a  solution  of  the  race  problem. 
The  negro  must  be  elevated  and  dealt  with  on  Southern 
soil — his  natural  and  his  ancestral  home. 

Another  serious  and  perhaps  alarming  fact  is  that  the 
negro  race  multiplies  more  rapidly  than  the  white  race. 
Making  all  due  allowance  for  imperfection  in  statistics, 
yet  this  fact  cannot  be  gainsaid  ;  and  hence  it  would 
seem  inevitable  that  the  day  must  come,  and  that  not 
many  generations  hence,  when  the  blacks. will  largely  out- 
number the  whites  in  the  sections  of  the  country  inhabited 
by  them.  What,  then,  will  be  the  result  .?  Shall  the 
majority,  contrary  to  the  fundamental  principle  of  our 
constitution,  be  ruled  by  the  minority  ?  Or  will  the  minor- 
ity migrate  Westward  or  Northward  and  leave  a  black 
South  }  The  second  idea  will,  of  course,  be  flouted  by 
Southerners  ;  while  Northerners  will  see  to  it  that  the  first 
proposition  is  not  carried  into  practice.  Hence  one  of  two 
things  must  happen — either  one  race  must  be  exterminated 
by  the  other  (which  God  forbid  !  )  or  the  negroes    must  be 


THE  NkGRO  IN  AMERICA.  109 

industrially ,  rnentally,  and   iiiorally  so  educated  and   elevated 
that  they  will  cease  to  he  objectionable  to  the  whites. 

I  believe  that  the  Southern  antipathy  to  negro  influence 
in  politics  rests  more  on  the  fact  of  his  ignorance,  social 
and  moral  degradation  than  upon  the  color  of  his  skin. 
Surely  no  thir.king  man  would  refuse  to  accept  a  wise  pro- 
position just  because  it  was  made  by  a  man  with  a  dark 
skin  !  If,  for  instance,  Senator  Bruce,  while  in  the  Senate, 
had  been  so  fortunate  as  to  have  devised  a  plan  which 
would  have  settled  the  race  question,  I  am  sure  that  the  most 
bitter  opponent  of '^  negro  rule  "in  the  South  would  not 
have  rejected  it  because  a  colored  man  originated  it. 
Hence  it  is  evident  that  the  reason  why  Southern  states- 
men are  opposed  to  the  political  equality  of  the  negro  is, 
not  because  he  was  once  their  slave,  nor  because  he  has  a 
black  skin,  but  because  he  is  ignorant  and  degraded.  I 
say  ''Southern  statesmen "  are  opposed  to  the  political 
equality  of  the  negro  because  of  his  ignorance  and  degrada- 
tion, but  of  course  foolish  people,  who  are  influenced 
more  by  sentiment  than  sense,  and  by  pride  and  prejudice 
than  by  brains,  object  to  his  political  equality  because  he 
was  once  their  slave.  But  fortunately  we  need  not  con- 
cern ourselves  with  these  people  very  much.  It  is  the 
men  of  brain   that  will  settle  this  question. 

From  what  has  just  been  said  it  is  evident  that  both  the 
Church  and  the  State  should  push  forward  education,  in- 
dustrial, mental,  and  moral,  among  the  blacks  of  the 
South.  State  aid  to  education  should  by  all  means  be 
given.  Schools  should  be  multiplied  and  improved — 
churches  should  be  built  and  furnished  with  earnest,  sober- 
minded,  judicious  clergymen,  who  would  check  and  guide 
the  exuberance  of  the  negro's  religious  emotions.  It  is  a 
great  misfortune  to  all  parties  that  the  ballot  was  put  into 
the  hands  of  the  negro  before  he  was  prepared  to  use  it 
intelligently,  but  now  that  he  has  it,  it  is  impossible  to 
lawfully  take  it  from  him.  No  State  will  ever  vote  k)  dis- 
franchise itself,  and  hence  we  cannot  apply  "the  educa- 
tional qualification  "  to  voters,  and  therefore  the  only  thing 
to  be  done  is  to  educate  the  ignorant  voters,  and  this  can- 
not be  done  by  means  of  gun  and  club  but  by  precept 
and  persuasion. 

The  race  problem,  then,  seems  to  be  at  bottom  an 
educational  question.     When  the  negroes  are  elevated  in- 


no  TOPICS  OF  THE  TIMES. 

dustrially,  intellectually,  and  morally,  we  may  hope  that 
the  absurd  race  prejudices  will  have  so  died  out  that  the 
white  man  will  no  longer  object  to  sitting  beside  and  co- 
operating with  the  black  man  in  political  matters.  IMean- 
while,  of  course,  we  must  submit  to  misrule  and  all  thai 
means.  Every  consideration  leads  us  to  insist  upon  the 
industrial,  mental  and  moral  education  of  the  negro.  Be- 
cause he  is  our  inferior  brother  ;  because  our  forefathers 
stole  him  from  his  native  home  and  made  him  their  slave 
in  this  land ;  because  he  is  an  American  and  a  citizen  ; 
because  ignorance  and  irreligion  are  dangerous — for  all 
these  and  many  other  reasons  we  should  earnestly  and 
zealously  seek  the  elevation  of  the  negro. 

It  must  have  been  thoughts  like  these  that  made  Prof. 
James  Bryce,  M.P.,  author  of  "The  American  Common- 
wealth," say,  as  the  result  of  his  visit  through  the  South, 
that  "the  race  question  would  soon  be  determined  satis- 
factorily to  whites  and  blacks  if  both  the  great  political 
parties  would  cease  to  make  it  a  political  question."  "  He 
declares,"  said  the  Philadelphia  Zefi'^-£^/- for  Nov.  i8th,  1890, 
"  that  in  his  extended  travels  through  the  South  he  per- 
ceived few  signs  of  a  real  antagonism,  or  of  any  irrecon- 
cilable feeling  of  ill-will,  or  of  prejudice,  even,  between 
the  two  races,  which  was  not  the  consequence  of  political 
disagreement." 

Desirable  as  it  might  be  to  make  the  race  question  a 
sociological  rather  than  a  political  question,  yet  we  fail  to 
see  how  this  may  be  done  now  that  we  have  the  Fifteenth 
Amendment  to  the  National  Constitution  and  two  political 
parties  bidding  for  the  negro's  vote.  But  perhaps  we  may 
emphasize  the  sociological  rather  than  the  political  aspect 
of  this  problem. 

The  Ledger  well  says:  "The  Southern  whites  and 
blacks  are  not  nearly  so  united  now,  the  one  as  Democrats 
and  the  other  as  Republicans,  as  they  were  fifteen  or  even 
ten  years  ago  ;  and  as  they  receive  the  advantages  of  educa- 
tion, and  become  owners  and  renters  of  the  land  they  till, 
and  skilled  workmen  or  effective  laborers,  they  will  be  in- 
fluenced more  by  individual  opinions  or  convictions  or 
material  interests  than  by  previous  prejudices,  with  the 
result  of  dividing  their  strength  between  the  two  parties. 
It  has  been  noticed  by  many  intelligent  authorities  that  in 
the  border  States  of  the  South  the  colored  people  are  much 


TI/E  NEGRO  IN  AMERICA.  1 1  ^ 

less  of  a  single  party  than  they  were  but  a  few  years  ago, 
and  that  the  entire  relationship  between  them  and  the 
•whites  is  less  antagonistic  than  it  was,  and  that  it  is  cer- 
tainly, if  slowly,  growing  more  cordial.  The  race  ques- 
tion, therefore,  is  almost  settled  along  the  border  States  of 
the  South,  and  it  will  be  settled  in  the  other  States  in 
course  of  time.  Education  and  common  interests  will  in 
time  do  a  great  deal  to  bring  the  two  races  into  closer  and 
friendlier  relationship." 

"  Moreover,"  continues  the  Ledger,  "it  is  not  only  the 
Southern  blacks  who  need  to  learn  something.  The  whites 
still  need  a  good  deal  of  education.  The  whites  have  not 
too  commonly  tried  the  policy  of  kindness,  or  of  justice 
even.  They  have  not  tried  so  much  to  induce  the  blacks 
to  be  of  the  Democratic  party  as  to  prevent  them  from 
voting  with  the  Republican  party.  The  means  they  have 
too  frequently  used  to  do  this  have  been  so  unjust  as  to 
influence  the  blacks  to  continue  in  their  united  opposition." 
I  fancy  that  if  the  negroes  were,  as  a  body,  Democrats, 
Southern  statesmen  would  not  be  quite  so  strongly  opposed 
to  "negro  rule"  as  they  are.  Let  them,  then,  educate  the 
blacks  in  Democratic  principles.  Let  them,  if  you  please, 
show  that  such  principles  are  better  suited  to  the  develop- 
ment of  the  South  than  Republican  principles.  Let  them 
show  the  negro  that  his  interest  lies  in  the  South,  and  that 
whatever  promotes  its  welfare  promotes  his  happiness,  and 
the  problem  will  be  solved.  Of  course,  this  will  be  slow 
work,  but  the  future  is  before  us,  and  the  elevation  of  a 
race,  industrially,  mentally  and  morally,  must  be  the  work 
of  ages.  Meanwhile,  let  both  political  parties  abstain  from 
such  legislation  as  the  Lodge  Elections  Bill  of  1890,  which 
is  calculated  to  stir  up  strife  and  foment  sectional  discord. 
Let  things  pursue  the  natural  course  of  development.* 

*  Compare  Henry  W.  Grady's  "New  South." 


1 1  2  TOPICS  OF  THE  TIMES. 


THE  BIBLE  IN  THE   PUBLIC    SCHOOLS. 

Some  time  ago  Cardinal  Manning  of  England  wrote  an 
article  for  The  Forum,  in  which  he  not  only  opposed  the 
teaching  or  reading  of  the  Bible  in  the  public  schools,  but 
he  denounced  the  public  school  system  itself,  as  an  inva- 
sion of  the  rights  of  parents  and  children,  and  an  undue 
assumption  of  power  on  the  part  of  the  State.  This  is 
essentially  the  position  of  the  Anarchists.  The  Cardinal 
was  very  effectually  answered  in  the  following  number 
of  The  Forum,  in  which  the  writer  showed  conclusively 
that  our  public  school  system  does  not  violate  the  rights 
of  either  parents  or  children,  and  is  no  undue  assumption 
of  power  on  the  part  of  the  Government.  The  State  is 
simply  another  name  for  the  people  acting  in  their  cor- 
porate capacity,  and  as  such  it  has  a  perfect  right  (in  other 
words,  the  people  have  a  perfect  right)  to  do  whatever  is 
necessary  to  its  (their)  highest  welfare.  All  must  and  do 
admit  that  national  ignorance  is  the  root  of  many  national 
evils,  and  so  it  follows  that  the  State  should  provide  such 
education  for  its  members  as  may  enable  them  to  intelli- 
gently discharge  the  duties  of  citizens.  This  is  the  great 
principle  upon  which  our  public  school  system  is  based, 
and  it  is  so  transparently  correct — the  benefits  of  the  com- 
mon school,  notwithstanding  its  imperfections,  are  so 
great — that  Americans  wnll  not  surrender  it  at  the  bidding 
of  Cardinal  or  Pope  or  anybody  else.  Assuming,  then, 
that  the  public  school  has  come  to  stay,  the  question  to 
be  answered  is,  What  shall  we  teach  in  it }  Remembering 
that  this  is  a  State  institution,  the  following  quotation  from 
Lord  Macaulay's  Essay,  on  Gladstone's  ''  State  and 
Church,"  completely  answers  this  question:  *'Mr.  Glad- 
stone's whole  theory,"  said  the  essayist,  "rests  on  this 
great   fundamental  proposition,    that  the   propagation    of 


THE  BIBLE  IN  THE  PUBLIC  SCHOOL  j  j  ^ 

religious  truth  is  one  of  the  principal  ends  of  Government 
as  government.  We  are,  therefore,  desirous  to  point  out 
clearly  a  distinction  which,  though  very  obvious,  seems 
to  be  overlooked  by  many  excellent  people.  In  their 
opinion  to  say  that  the  ends  of  government  are  temporal 
and  not  spiritual  is  tantamount  to  saying  that  the  temporal 
welfare  of  man  is  of  more  importance  than  his  spiritual 
welfare.  But  this  is  an  entire  mistake.  The  question  is 
not  whether  spiritual  interests  be  or  be  not  superior  in  im- 
portance to  temporal  interests,  but  whether  the  machinery 
which  happens  to  be  employed  for  the  purpose  of  protect- 
ing certain  temporal  interests  of  a  society  be  necessarily 
such  a  machinery  as  is  fitted  to  promote  the  spiritual  inter- 
ests of  that  society.  Without  a  division  of  labor  the  world 
could  not  go  on.  It  is  of  very  much  more  importance  that 
men  should  have  food  than  that  they  should  have  piano- 
fortes. Yet  it  by  no  means  follows  that  every  pianoforte 
maker  ought  to  add  the  business  of  a  baker  to  his  own  ;  for, 
if  he  did  so,  we  should  have  both  much  worse  music  and 
much  worse  bread.  It  is  of  much  more  importance  that  the 
knowledge  of  religious  truth  should  be  wisely  diffused  than 
that  the  art  of  sculpture  should  flourish  among  us.  Yet 
it  by  no  means  follows  that  the  Royal  Academy  ought  to 
unite  with  its  present  functions  those  of  the  Society  for 
Promoting  Christian  Knowledge,  to  distribute  theological 
tracts,  to  send  forth  missionaries,  to  turn  out  'one  man 
for  being  a  Roman  Catholic,  another  for  being  a  Metho- 
dist, and  a  third  for  being  a  Swedenborgian.'  For  the 
effects  of  such  folly  would  be  that  we  should  have  the 
worst  possible  Academy  of  Arts  and  the  worst  possible 
Society  for  Promoting  Christian  Knowledge. 

''As  to  some  of  the  ends  of  civil  government,"  adds  this 
great  statesman,  "  all  people  are  agreed  that  it  is  designed 
to  protect  our  persons  and  our  property  ;  that  it  is  designed 
to  compel  us  to  satisfy  our  wants,  not  by  rapine,  but  by  in- 
dustry ;  that  it  is  designed  to  compel  us  to  decide  our 
differences,  not  by  the  strong  hand,  but  by  arbitra- 
tion ;  that  it  is  designed  to  direct  our  whole  force,  as  that 
of  one  man,  against  any  other  society  that  may  offer  us 
injury.^^  These  are  propositions  which  will  hardly  be  dis- 
puted,"— except,  we  must  add,  by  the  Anarchists,  with 
whom  we  are  not  now  concerned. 

"Now,"  continues  our  author,    "these    are  matters   in 


114  TOPICS  OF  THE   TIMES. 

which  man,  without  any  reference  to  any  higher  Being,  or 
to  any  future  state,  is  very  deeply  interested.  Every  human 
being,  be  he  idolator,  Mohammedan,  Jew,  Papist,  Socinian, 
Deist,  or  Atheist,  naturally  loves  life,  shrinks  from  pain, 
desires  comforts  which  can  be  enjoyed  only  in  communities 
where  property  is  secure.  To  be  murdered,  to  be  tortured, 
to  be  robbed,  to  be  sold  into  slavery — these  are  evils  from 
which  men  of  every  religion,  and  men  of  no  religion,  wish 
to  be  protected  ;  and  therefore  it  will  hardly  be  disputed  that 
men  of  every  religion,  and  of  no  religion,  have  thus  far  a 
common  interest  in  being  well  governed." 

It  should  be  clear  from  these  wise  words  that  the  propa- 
gation of  religious  truth  is  not  an  object  of  government  as 
such,  and  therefore  its  propagation  in  the  governmental 
schools,  by  means  of  prayer,  reading  the  Scriptures,  etc., 
cannot  be  advocated.  The  framers  of  the  first  amendment 
to  our  constitution  were  evidently  influenced  by  such  con- 
siderations as  these.  The  object  of  the  public  school  is 
simply  to  teach  the  elements  of  an  education  which  will 
enable  the  recipient  to  intelligently  discharge  the  duties 
and  responsibilities  of  a  citizen  of  the  Republic — a  Peo- 
ple's Government.  It  cannot  therefore  compass  the  whole 
field  of  education  and  should  not  attempt  to  do  so.  It  is  a 
violation  of  the  principle  of  division  of  labor  to  include 
religious  instruction  in  the  curriculum  of  the  public  school. 
There  is  an  organization — the  church  and  Sunday-school — 
whose  business  it  is  to  impart  religious  instruction,  and  if 
this  be  faithfully  used,  more  especially  if  those  who  clamor 
for  the  introduction  of  the  Bible  into  the  public  schools  will 
be  faithful  in  reading  the  Scriptures  and  in  family  prayers 
at  home  before  the  children  go  to  school,  there  will  be  ab- 
solutely no  necessity  for  the  instructor's  prayer  or  Bible 
reading  in  the  school.  The  home  or  the  Sunday-school  is 
the  proper  place  for  instructing  the  young  in  the  Scriptures. 
"If,"  says  another,  "the  secular  branches  of  study,  as  they 
are  sometimes  called,  and  the  teaching  of  religion  are 
mingled  together,  it  is  not  always  to  the  advantage  of  either 
the  one  or  the  other.  The  utmost  care  should  be  taken  to 
surround  religious  instruction  with  the  proper  atmosphere. 
The  subject  should  be  approached  through  solemn  prepar- 
atory services  such  as  the  Church  has  established  in  its 
ceremonial.  The  time  and  place  should  be  made  to  assist 
instead  of  distracting  the  religious  impression,"     The  pub- 


THE  BIBLE  IN  THE  PUBLIC  SCHOOLS.  1 1 5 

lie  schoolroom  and  9  o'clock  a.m.  are  certainly  not  espe- 
cially conducive  to  religious  impressions. 

It  is  almost  universally  believed  that  there  is  something 
inherently  irreligious  in  worldly  occupations,  and  that  in 
order  to  sanctify  them  they  must  be  accompanied  by 
a  prayer  and  the  reading  of  a  passage  from  the  Script- 
ures. Hence  we  have  a  chaplain  for  Congress  to  say 
a  prayer  at  the  beginning  of  each  session,  while  the 
members  read,  write,  chew  tobacco,  and  ponder  unright- 
eous decrees  ;  and  the  graduating  exercises  of  a  college 
or  even  a  nominating  political  convention  must  be 
opened  with  prayer,  which  is  often  a  first-class  stump- 
speech."  In  1888  when  the  Republican  Convention  was 
in  session  in  Chicago,  a  clergyman  present  made  such 
a  patriotic  prayer  that  it  brought  down  the  applause 
of  the  Convention.  Col.  Robert  G.  IngersoU  was  a  member 
of  that  Convention,  and  I  daresay  most  heartily  applauded 
prayer  for  once.  We  therefore  agree  with  a  writer  just 
quoted  when  he  says:  "The  vague  notion  that  secular 
occupations,  whether  of  a  higher  or  a  lower  grade,  when 
dissevered  from  the  clergy  or  from  the  rights  of  worship,  are 
somehow  tainted  with  evil,  is  a  Jewish  and  medieval  (and 
false)  notion,  of  which  it  behooves  Christians  to  disabuse 
themselves.  A  bank  is  not  pagan  or  godless,  provided 
it  is  honestly  managed,  even  if  it  is  not  opened  and  closed 
with  daily  prayer.  A  shoemaker  is  not  godless  because 
he  refrains  from  pronouncing  the  benediction  when  he 
delivers  a  pair  of  shoes  to  his  customer.  Enough  that  his 
leather  is  good,  his  thread  strong,  his  work  thorough  and 
his  promises  are  punctually  kept.  The  same  principles 
apply  to  a  schoolmaster.  As  long  as  he  does  his  proper 
work  of  teaching  ari^t  the  branches  of  knowledge  com- 
mitted to  him,  and  in  his  intercourse  with  his  pupils  con- 
forms to  the  spirit  of  Christian  morals,  there  is  no  taint  of 
profaneness  attached  toliim  or  his  function." 

The  fact  is  all  truth  is  sacred,  and  he  who  teaches  it, 
whether  it  be  truth  in  science,  mathematics,  philosophy, 
history  or  what  not,  performs  a  sacred  service  even  if  he 
does  not  begin  it  with  prayer  or  reading  of  the  Scriptures. 
The  attempt  to  brand  one  department  of  study  as  inhe- 
rently ''secular"  or  "profane"  and  another  as  "sacred" 
is  of  a  piece  with  the  effort  to  make  one  day  of  the  week 
essentially    different  from    another  and  more  holy.     The 


Il6  TOPICS  OF  THE  TIMES. 

practical  result  is  that  many  behave  decently  on  Sunday 
and  most  indecently  the  balance  of  the  week  ;  and  many 
clamor  for  the  reading  of  the  Bible  in  the  public  schools, 
when  perhaps  it  is  rarely  read  in  their  families.  Let  us, 
then,  have  done  with  cant  and  be  rational  and  real. 

But  it  will  be  said,  "  Ought  not  morality  to  be  taught  in 
the  public  schools .?  Surely  if  the  intellectual  develop- 
ment of  the  people  is  necessary  to  the  welfare  of  the  State, 
the  moral  development  is  more  so."  Certainly  it  is.  But 
is  the  Bible  a  suitable  text-hook  in  morals  for  children,  and 
is  the  mere  reading  of  a  few  verses  from  it  at  the  opening 
of  the  school  the  proper  method  of  instructing  the  pupils 
in  morality  ?  No  !  And  those  who  urge  this  point  make 
a  radical  distinction  between  religion  and  morality,  as  radi- 
cal as  they  do  between  secular  and  sacred  studies.  It  is 
"religion,"  whatever  they  may  mean  by  that  emasculated 
word,  as  distinguished  from  "morality,"  that  they  want 
taught.  They  frequently  denounce  a  clergyman  for  preach- 
ing "  moral  essays  "  and  not  "  spiritual  sermons,"  and  if  it 
were  only  "  morality  "  that  they  wanted  taught  in  the  pub- 
lic schools  they  would  not  call  so  loudly  for  the  Bible. 
This  book  is  too  large  and  too  varied  in  its  contents  and 
too  recondite  in  much  of  its  teaching  to  be  used  as  a  text 
book  in  morals  in  colleges  even.  How  absurd,  then,  to 
talk  of  using  it  in  elementary  schools  for  such  a  purpose  ! 
Above  all,  the  mere  reading  of  a  few  verses  from  the  Bible 
at  the  opening  of  the  school  is  not  an  effectual  method  of 
teaching  morality.  What  is  needed  is  a  small  simple  te;ct 
book  which  the  children  will  be  required  to  study  and  to 
recite  from,  and  this  should  consist  of  a  collection  oi  uni- 
versally accepted  moral  maxims  to  which  no  one  could  take 
exception. 

What  most  people  desire  in  demanding  the  introduction 
of  the  Bible  in  the  public  schools,  in  order  (professedly)  to 
impart  moral  instruction,  is  to  introduce  sectarian  theology 
into  the  schools.  The  Episcopalian  would  probably  con- 
sider the  Catechism  a  good  text-book  for  this  purpose.  The 
Methodist  would  want  the  "Discipline;"  the  Zvvinglian 
would  ask  for  the  Heidelberg  Catechism  ;  the  Presbyterian 
would  wish  the  Shorter  Catechism,  etc.  No  wonder,  then, 
that  "freethinkers,"  on  the  one  hand,  who  consider  these 
catechisms  summaries  of  much  that  is  false,  and  Roman 
Catholics,  on  the  other,  who  think  them  altogether  dam- 


THE  BIBLE  IN  THE  PUBLIC  SCHOOLS. 


117 


nable,  should  object  to  having  their  children  taught  sec- 
tarian theology  under  the  name  of  morality.  But  neither 
of  these  parties  could  object  to  the  teaching  of  the  element- 
ary and  universal  principles  of  goodness,  as  that  word  is 
commonly  used.  Let  the  Bible,  then,  be  abandoned  in 
the  public  schools  and  let  it  be  taught  in  the  proper 
place,  the  Sunday-school  and  church,  and  by  proper 
persons,  and  on  proper  days. 

But  while  I  thus  advocate  the  disuse  of  the  Bible  either  to 
propagate  religion  or  morality  in  the  public  schools,  yet 
I  do  believe  that  Bible  history  should  be  taught  therein, 
and  I  have  been  much  surprised  that  advocates  of  its  use 
in  the  school  have  not  suggested  (so  far  as  I  know)  this 
point.  The  history  of  Greece,  Rome,  Persia  and  other 
nations  is  taught  in  the  schools,  why  should  not  the  history 
of  Israel  be  taught  .'*  It  was  one  of  the  greatest  nations  of 
antiquity,  and  its  history  is  quite  as  important  as  that  of 
any  other  people.  No  one  could  justly  object  to  this. 
There  would  be  even  less  possibility  of  teaching  its  history 
from  a  sectarian  pojnt  of  viev7  than  there  is  of  teaching 
the  history  of  Medieval  Europe  from  such  a  standpoint. 
Of  course,  the  Bible  should  not  be  used  as  the  text-book 
on  the  history  of  Israel  any  more  than  it  should  be  used 
as  a  text-book  in  morals.  It  is  not  suited  to  the  purpose, 
and  there  are  many  other  more  suitable  books  which 
might  be  used.  Thus  Dr.  Wm.  Smith,  editor  of  the  "Bible 
Dictionary,"  etc.,  has  written  a  History  of  the  Old  and 
New  Testaments  for  the  "  Student's  Series  "  (Harper  Bros. ), 
and  these  histories  have  been  abridged  and  condensed  in- 
to smaller  volumes,  called  "The  Students  Smaller  Series," 
which  w^ould  make  admirable  text-books  for  public  school 
purposes.  They  are  absolutely  non-sectarian,  merely  state 
facts,  and  could  not  therefore  be  objected  to  by  any  one. 
The  history  of  Israel,  apart  from  all  questions  of  religion, 
is  a  most  glorious  history.  Her  lawgivers,  her  poets, 
her  orators,  her  warriors,  her  statesmen,  compare  most 
favorably  with  those  of  Greece  or  Rome.  There  are 
codes  of  law  which  rank  with  the  laws  of  Lycurgus, 
Solon  and  Justinian.  There  are  orations,  such  as  those 
of  Isaiah,  which  equal  any  of  the  productions  of  Demos- 
thenes or  Cicero.  There  are  the  poems  of  David  which 
Homer  and  Virgil  do  not  eclipse.  There  are  battles  which 
should  be  classed  \vith  those  of  Marathon,  Thermopylae 


liS  TOPICS  OF  THE  TIMES. 

and  the  Milvian  Bridg-e.  And  yet  our  boys  and  girls  are 
crammed  full  of  Greek  and  Roman  fables  and  history, 
while  this  great  storehouse  of  historical  lore  is  closed  to 
them,  owing  to  a  superstitious  reverence  for  the  Bible 
which  refuses  to  study  its  characters  as  other  peoples'  are 
studied.  Therefore  I  plead  for  the  introduction  of  the 
study  of  the  history  of  Israel  in  the  public  school  along 
with  that  of  Rome,  Greece  and  other  countries.  In  do- 
ing this  I  do  not  take  the  Bible  out  of  the  public  schools 
with  one  hand  and  replace  it  with  the  other,  nor  am  I 
advocating  the  study  of  sectarian  theology  under  cover  of 
the  study  of  history.  I  am  simply  urging  the  irrefutable 
proposition  that  there  is  no  more  reason  why  the  history 
of  Israel  should  not  be  taught  in  our  schools  than  there  is 
why  the  history  of  Greece  or  Rome  should  not  be 
taught,  and  since  the  latter  is  taught,  the  former  may  and 
should  be.  If  it  be  said  that  the  teacher  might  impart 
his  peculiar  theological  views  while  teaching  such  history, 
I  reply,  yes,  and  the  teacher  of  morals  or  philosophy 
might,  ijf  he  chose,  teach  that  the  principles  of  Socrates 
were  superior  to  Christ's  :  but  school  teachers  are  not  all 
religious  cranks  who  would  wring  in  their  opinions  in 
season  and  out  of  season.  At  any  rate,  there  is  no  more 
danger  of  one's  doing  it  in  the  historical  department  than 
in  any  other,  and  there  is  no  valid  objection  to  the  pro- 
position now  made.  And  it  would  be  highly  beneficial  in 
many  respects.  The  ignorance  of  Israel's  history,  even 
among  otherwise  well-informed  people,  is  amazing  and 
painful,  and  one  great  reason  why  the  Bible  is  no  better 
understood  than  it  is,  is  the  fact  that  it  is  not  studied  from 
the  historical  standpoint.  While,  therefore,  the  study  of 
Israel's  history  could  not  be  justly  objected  to  by  Roman 
Catholics,  it  would  indirectly  promote  a  more  correct 
knowledge  of  the  Bible,  and  this  should  satisfy  those  who 
desire  its  use  in  the  public  schools. 

To  sum  up  :  I  agree  with  those  who  object  to  the  use 
of  the  Bible  in  the  public  schools  ;  (i)  because  this  is  an  in- 
fringement of  the  fundamental  principles  of  our  civil 
government  ;  (2)  because  it  is  useless,  produces  little  or  no 
effect  upon  the  hearers ;  and  (3)  because  morality  can  be 
taught  without  the  Bible.  But  the  history  of  Israel  may 
be  taught  with  great  advantage,  and  to  it  no  valid  objec- 
tion can  be  made.     I  may  add  that  as  some  people  fancy 


THE  BIBLE  IX  THE  PUBLIC  SCHOOLS.  119 

that  opposition  to  the  use  of  the  Bible  in  the  public  schools 
is  an  indication  of  infidelity  or  of  Romanistic  proclivities, 
I  am  not  conscious  of  either  influence,  and  merely  ad- 
vocate the  vievi^s  herein  set  forth  because  they  seem  to  me 
correct. 


I20  TOPICS  OF  THE   TJMES. 


PART  II. 


SERMON  I. 

OUR  COUNTRY  :    ITS  CHARACTER  AND  DESTINY. 

A  THANKSGIVING  DAY  DISCOURSE. 

Text  : — For  the  Lord  thy  God  bringeth  thee  into  a  good  land,  a  land 
of  brooks  of  watei",  of  fountains  and  depths  that  spring  out  of  valleys  and 
hills.  A  land  of  wheat,  and  barley,  and  vines,  and  fig  trees,  and 
pomegranates  ;  a  land  of  oil  olive,  and  honey.  A  land  wherein  thou 
shalt  eat  bread  without  scarceness,  thou  shalt  not  lack  anything  in  it ;  a 
land  whose  stones  are  iron,  and  out  of  whose  hills  thou  mayest  dig  brass. 
When  thou  hast  eaten  and  art  full,  then  thou  shalt  bless  the  Lord 
thy  God  for  the  good  land  which  he  hath  given  thee.  .  .  .  And  it  shall 
be,  if  thou  do  at  all  forget  the  Lord  thy  God,  and  walk  after  other  gods, 
and  serve  them,  and  worship  them,  I  testify  against  you  this  day  that  ye 
shall  surely  perish.  As  the  nations  which  the  Lord  destroyeth  before 
your  face,  so  shall  ye  perish  ;  because  ye  would  not  be  obedient  unto  the 
voice  of  the  Lord  your  God. — Deuteronomy,  viii.  7-10,  19,  20. 

The  star  of  progress,  which  rose  in  the  far  East  ages  ago, 
from  behind  the  mountains  of  savagery  and  barbarism,  has 
been  moving  higher  and  higher  in  the  poh'tical  firmament 
and  farther  westward,  until  it  has  nearly  reached  the  zenith, 
and  now  sheds  its  blessed  effulgence  abroad  over  our  fair 
land,  and  it  is  the  deep  significance  of  this  movement  that 
I  wish  to  explain  and  emphasize  in  this  sermon. 

As  we  glance  backward  through  the  mists  of  the  past, 
we  see  man,  in  the  beginning,  a  savage  animal,  wander- 
ing over  the  plains  and  amid  the  jungles  of  Southern  and 
Eastern  Asia.  He  lives  on  nuts  and  wild  fruits,  like  other 
animals;  he  has  no  "home,"  and  knows  nothing  of  arts, 
science,  religion  or  civilization  of  any  sort ;  but  slowly  he 
learns  to  wield  his  misshapen  club  at  his  fellow-creatures 
and  to  sling  his  rude  stone  axe.  By  and  by  he  discovers 
(perhaps  by  the  ''glance"  of  his  axe  and  its  striking  a 
stone,  making  the  fire  fly  out)  the  invaluable  element — fire  ; 
and  then  it  becomes  possible  for  him  to  leave  tropical 
regions  and  wander  into  colder  parts,  and  so  with  many  a 


OUR  COUNTRY:  ITS  CHARACTER  AND  DESTINY.   121 

weary  and  halting  step  he  painfully  climbs  one  or  two 
rungs  of  the  ladder  of  civilization.  The  primitive  hunting 
and  tishing  stage  develops  into  the  pastoral  stage — that  is, 
some  men  take  to  herding  cattle  and  dwelling  in  tents  ; 
and  this,  in  turn,  passes  into  the  agricultural  stage,  in 
which  the  cultivation  of  the  land  begins,  and  settled  life 
becomes  possible.  The  wheels  of  progress  now  com- 
mence greater  and  swifter  revolutions,  and  in  due  time  the 
great  civilization  of  ancient  Egypt,  India,  Chaldea,  Baby- 
lonia, Assyria,  Persia  and  the  far  East  arise.  Immense 
temples  Ijft  their  sacred  spires  into  the  skies  ;  pyramids  look 
down  upon  toiling  millions  ;  the  war-drum  throbs  through 
the  land  ;  the  battle-flag  is  unfurled  ;  the  earth  trembles 
beneath  the  tread  of  marching  armies,  and  hieroglyphic 
records  commemorate  on  palace  walls  the  triumph  of 
mighty  kings  and  the  fall  of  empires.  The  star  of  empire 
has  arisen.  By  and  by  it  begins  to  move  westward.  Alex- 
ander the  Great  conquers  and  unites  the  world,  but  it 
again  dissolves  into  its  constituent  elements  when  the  sod 
covers  the  hero.  Julius  Caesar  steps  upon  the  scene,  and 
mighty  Rome  spreads  abroad  the  pinions  of  her  conquering 
eagle.  But  hardly  has  it  overshadowed  the  earth  when  a 
low  rumble,  as  of  distant  thunder,  is  heard  in  the  North, 
and  the  Huns  and  Goths  and  Vandals  swoop  down  upon 
the  Eternal  City  and  capture  it — only,  however,  to  be  con- 
quered in  turn  by  a  power  they  knew  not  of — the  Christian 
Church.  About  the  same  time  "Saxon  and  Norman  and 
Dane"  move  from  the  plains  of  their  native  land  across 
the  English  Channel,  and  take  possession  of  the  British 
Isles.  They,  too,  in  due  time,  adopt  the  ensign  of  the 
cross.  A  great  break-up  and  consolidation  of  states  now 
takes  place,  and  feudalism  arises.  This  is  followed  by 
constitutional  monarchies  until  the  fifteenth  century  is 
reached,  and  then  one  of  those  mighty  men  whom  God  sends 
into  the  world  at  different  times  to  drive  the  chariot  of 
progress  forward  many  leagues  at  every  revolution  of  its 
wheels,  steps  upon  the  stage,  and  declares  that  new  worlds 
or  lands  lie  beyond  the  seas  and  he  wants  to  discover 
them.  Of  course,  like  every  great  and  progressive  mind, 
he  was  hooted  at ;  ridicule  and  persecution  assailed  him, 
but,  nothing  daunted,  he  wandered  from  court  to  court 
begging  for  royal  favor  and  funds  to  fit  out  an  expedition 
to    the   unknown   country,    and    finally   he    got  what   he 


122  TOPICS  OF  THE  TIMES. 

wanted,  and  on  the  third  day  of  August,  1492,  at  eight 
o'clock  in  the  morning,  three  little  vessels,  with  one  hun- 
dred and  twenty  brave  hearts  aboard,  weighed  anchor  in 
the  harbor  of  Palos,  on  the  southern  coast  of  Spain,  and 
Columbus  set  sail  for  the  ^^'estern  World.  As  the  Amer- 
ican looks  back  to  that  morning  and  sees  those  little  ships 
nestling  like  swans  on  the  blue  waves  of  the  Atlantic,  and 
thinks  of  all  that  it  meant,  surely  his  heart  must  swell  with 
emotion,  and  he  must  be  tempted  to  fall  down  before  the 
great  discoverer  as  one  of  God's  chosen  heroes.  Look 
over  this  fair  land,  with  its  noble  rivers  and  Jakes  and 
fountains  and  springs  :  "a  land  of  wheat,  and  barley,  and 
vines,  and  fig  trees,  and  pomegranates  ;  a  land  of  olive  oil 
and  honey  ;  a  land  wherein  we  may  eat  bread  without 
scarceness  ;  a  land  whose  stones  are  iron,  and  out  of  whose 
hills  we  dig  coal,  silver,  gold  and  precious  stones ;  "  and 
remember  that  but  for  the  courage  and  energy  of  one  man 
we  might  never  have  enjoyed  these  blessings. 

You  know  the  story  of  the  planting  of  the  various  col- 
onies in  this  country.  The  star  of  empire  rose  higher  and 
higher  in  these  western  heavens,  but  just  as  it  was  near- 
ing  the  zenith,  on  the  night  of  the  eighteenth  of  April, 
1775,  the  flash  of  a  lantern  in  the  old  North  Church,  of 
Boston,  proclaimed  that  the  American  Revolution  had 
begun.  You  know  the  result — the  struggles  and  success 
of  the  heroic  Washington,  and  the  final  establishment  of  a 
Government  "of  the  people,  by  the  people,  and  for  the 
people." 

What  is  the  meaning  of  "this  mighty  movement,  which, 
beginning  in  the  wilds  of  Southern  Asia,  has  spread  itself 
through  ages  and  countries  until  it  has  ended  in  this  ' '  good 
land.-*  "  Let  those  who  can  believe  it  has  no  meaning  do 
so  ;  but,  as  for  me,  I  believe,  with  the  Rev.  Dr.  Strong, 
that  God  is  preparing  in  our  civilization  the  die  with  which 
to  stamp  all  the  peoples  of  the  earth.  Here  in  America 
are  to  be  solved  the  great  problems  which  have  puzzled 
the  ages,  and  hence  every  true  American  should  ask  him- 
self:  What  part  am  I  to  take  in  the  solution  of  these  prob- 
lems .?  And  this  settled,  he  should  set  to  work  right 
nobly. 

"Every  great  historian,"  says  Archdeacon  Farrar, 
"should  be  no  dull  registrar  of  events,  but  a  prophet, 
standing,  like  Daniel  of  old,   amid  the  careless  riot  and 


OUR  COUNTRY:  ITS  CHARACTER  AND  DESTINY.   123 

luxurious  banqueting  of  life,  and  teaching  men  to  decipher 
that  gleaming  message  of  God,  written  as  with  the  fingers 
of  a  man's  hand,  on  the  parliament  of  nations  and  the 
palaces  of  kings,  that  what  is  morally  just  must  be  polit- 
ically expedient ;  that  what  is  morally  wrong  cannot  be 
politically  right. "'  It  is  for  this  purpose  that  I  come  to  you 
this  morning.  I  come  not  to  puff  up  your  national 
conceit,  but  to  proclaim,  with  all  the  energy  of  my  soul, 
that  "righteousness  exalteth  a  nation,  but  sin  is  a  re- 
proach and  pitfall  to  any  people."  I  believe,  with  you, 
that  our  country  is,  in  many  respects,  the  greatest  country 
on  the  globe  ;  we  are  "the  heirs  of  all  the  ages,"  as  we 
have  just  seen,  and  the  text  is  an  exact  description  of  our 
land;  it  is  a  "good  land,  aland  of  rivers  and  fountains 
and  springs,  which  surpass  all  others  ;  a  land  of  wheat 
and  barley  and  vines  and  fig  trees  and  pomegranates  of 
the  rarest  kind ;  a  land  of  olive  oil  and  honey  ;  a  land 
wherein  we  may  eat  bread  without  scarceness  ;  a  land 
whose  stones  are  iron,  and  out  of  whose  hills  we  dig  the 
richest  treasures."  We  are  the  wealthiest  nation  on  earth. 
We  have  room  enough  for  a  thousand  millions  instead  of 
sixty  millions  of  people.  We  lead  the  world  in  inventions 
and  manufactures,  and  I  believe  the  day  is  rapidly  coming 
w^hen  we  shall  lead  the  world  in  education  and  religion.  I 
agree,  then,  with  the  greatest  enthusiast  about  America, 
but  I  shall  not  shut  my  eyes  to  the  dangers  that  threaten 
our  country.  She  may  become  the  grandest  nation  that 
has  ever  figured  in  history  ;  she  may  sink,  as  Rome  and 
many  another  nation  have  sunk,  in  ruin  and  disgrace.  It 
is  because  I  love  my  country  ;  it  is  because  I  believe  ihat 
the  greatest  possibilities  lie  before  her  that  ever  offered 
themselves  to  any  nation,  that  I  would  warn  her  of  her 
danger.     It  is  manifold. 

There  is,  first  of  all,  her  wealth  itself.  This  may  be  so 
utilized  as  to  prove  her  greatest  blessing,  but  if  it  be 
suffered  to  gather  into  a  few  hands,  as  it  is  rapidly  doing, 
it  will  undoubtedly  prove  her  greatest  curse.  A  clever  and 
judicious  writer  in  The  Forum  for  November,  1889,  alleged 
that  "25,000  persons  own  just  about  one-half  of  all  the 
wealth  of  the  United  States,"  and  he  closed  his  remarkable 
article  with  these  startling  words:  "Within  thirty  years, 
the  present  methods  of  taxation  being  maintained,  the 
United  States  of  America  will  be  substantially  ovvmed  by 


124  TOPICS  OF  THE  TIMES. 

less  than  50,000  persons,  constituting  less  than  one  in  five 
hundred  of  the  adult  male  population."  Whether  this 
writer's  figures  and  speculations  be  absolutely  correct  or 
not,  no  one  can  deny  that  there  is  a  strong  tendency 
among  us  towards  a  moneyed  aristocracy,  which,  if  it  come, 
will  lord  it  over  the  lower  classes,  the  poor,  more  severely 
than  the  lords  of  the  middle  ages  did  over  their  serfs.  I 
do  not  denounce  the  millionaires.  Placed  in  their  posi- 
tion, probably  all  of  us  would  act  essentially  as  they  do. 
I  do  not  propose  to  rob  them  of  their  wealth  by  violent  and 
unjust  means,  but  I  simply  cite  facts,  and  pomt  to  the 
inevitable  result  of  the  aggregation  of  the  wealth  of  the 
country  in  a  few  centres,  and  1  urge  that  a  better  industrial 
system  may  and  should  be  adopted  whereby  the  products 
of  labor  would  be  more  evenly  and  equitably  divided 
among  the  people. 

Secondly,  immigration  may  be  a  great  blessing  or  a  great 
curse  to  our  country.  If  it  be  wisely  guided  and  guarded 
we  should  turn  no  shipload  of  immigrants  from  our  shores 
until  our  thousand  millions  are  here.  But,  for  the  sake  of 
America's  future  welfare — nay,  for  the  sake  of  the  immi- 
grants themselves — let  immigration  be  carefully  watched 
and  most  judiciously  directed  and  encouraged.  America 
is  not  in  duty  bound  to  become  the  dumping-ground  of 
European  and  Asiatic  slums.  It  is  not  only  unjust  to  her, 
it  will  not  only  embarrass  her  future  progress,  it  is  not  only 
unfair  to  the  immigrants  themselves  to  permit  unregulated 
and  promiscuous  immigration,  but  it  encourages  oppres- 
sion on  the  part  of  the  people  who  send  them  to  us. 
Eurape  and  Asia  are  as  much  bound  to  take  care  of  all 
their  poor  that  they  can  take  care  of  as  we  are,  and  to 
allow  them  to  shove  their  sickly,  dwarfed,  ignorant,  pau- 
perized masses  off  upon  us  when  they  could  provide  for 
them  themselves  is  relieving  them  of  a  duty  to  these 
people  that  they  ought  to  discharge.  We  are  willing  to 
take  their  surplus  humanity,  but  let  us  be  sure  that  it  is  a 
surplus  for  which  they  are  utterly  unable  to  provide. 

Third,  the  Rum  Power  is  one  of  our  greatest  dangers. 
Prohibition  seems  impracticable,  and  High  License  breeds 
more  evils  than  it  cures.  The  saloon  not  only  kills  thou- 
ands  of  our  fellow  men  annually,  but  it  has  so  depraved 
politics  that  nothing  less  than  a  grand  crusade  ot  the 
Church    and    all   order-loving   people    against   it,    and   a 


OUR  COUNTRY:  ITS  CHARACTER  AND  DESTINY.   125 

general  elevation  of  public  sentiment,  can  destroy  or  cur- 
tail its  power. 

These  are  three  of  the  greatest  dangers  that  threaten  our 
country,  and  in  order  to  avert  the  doom  to  which  they  are 
driving  us,  three  great  reforms  must  take  place  :  a  reform 
in  politics,  a  reform  in  economics,  and  a  reform  in  the 
Church. 

America  will  not  be  free,  she  will  not  accomplish  the 
glorious  destiny  her  loyal  sons  would  have  her  accomplish, 
until  the  abominable  and  disgraceful  "spoils  system"  in 
politics  be  abolished.  The  very  mention  of  this  curse 
makes  us  grow  pale  with  fear  and  discouragement,  for  it 
is  the  great  upas  tree  which  the  devil  has  planted  in  our 
political  garden  to  poison  everything  with  its  shade,  and 
its  extermination  seems  impossible.  Mr.  Bryce,  in  his  able 
work,  "  The  American  Commonwealth,"  truly  says:  "It 
is  the  spoilsmen  who  have  depraved  and  distorted  the 
mechanism  of  politics.  It  is  they  who  pack  the  primaries 
and  run  the  conventions  so  as  to  destroy  the  freedom  of 
popular  choice — they  who  contrive  and  execute  the  elec- 
tion frauds  which  disgrace  some  states  and  cities — repeat- 
ing and  ballot-stuffing,  obstruction  of  the  polls,  and  fraudu- 
lent countings  in."  These  men  care  nothing  for  principle  : 
they  have  no  principle.  All  ur.der  the  sun  they  want  is  to 
bleed  the  body  politic.  And  against  the  rule  of  such  men 
■ — against  the  "  spoils  system  " — every  lover  of  his  country 
will  lift  up  his  voice  in  speech  and  prayer,  until  the  curse 
be  destroyed  by  an  elevated  and  purified  public  opinion, 
for  this  alone  can  do  it. 

Secondly,  an  economic  reform  is  necessary.  It  is  cer- 
tainly a  most  remarkable  and  deplorable  fact  that  in  this 
land,  with  its  unparalleled  resources,  capable  of  support- 
ing a  thousand  millions,  and  possessing  only  sixty-five 
millions  of  people,  there  should  be  thousands  of  unem- 
ployed and  starving  men,  who  walk  the  earth,  seeking 
work  and  finding  none,  to  whom  Thanksgiving  Day  is  a 
mockery  and  a  sham  ;  but  so  it  is.  The  reports  on  labor, 
furnished  by  the  Government,  prove  it.  Again,  I  de- 
nounce no  one.  I  have  no  swift  and  potent  remedy  for 
the  ills  we  are  heir  to ;  but  I  must  call  most  earnest  atten- 
tion to  such  facts,  and  I  must  insist  that  there  is  a  screw 
loose  somewhere  in  the  industrial  machinery,  and  until  it 
be    tightened   America   cannot    accomplish    her    glorious 


126  TOPICS  OF  THE  TIMES. 

destiny.  As  long  as  these  thousands  of  unwilling  idlers 
are  kept  in  their  present  miserable  condition,  so  long  will 
theft,  drunkenness,  poverty,  murder,  and  political  corrup- 
tion lift  their  hydra  heads  over  the  land  and  play  havoc 
with  society. 

Finally,  a  great  theological  and  ecclesiastical  reform 
must  take  place  if  our  nation  would  prosper.  We  want  no 
union  of  Church  and  State  :  nothing  but  evil  has  ever  re- 
sulted from  such  a  union  ;  but  the  Church  is  a  great  power 
in  the  land,  and  we  want  her  to  recognize  the  facts  of  the 
case,  and  buckle  on  her  armor  and  do  battle  for  the  right. 
She  must  put  herself  more  in  harmony  with  the  thought  of 
the  day.  She  should  welcome  gladly  all  the  light  that 
science  can  throw  upon  theological  problems,  and  should 
relax  her  dogmatic  bands,  and  receive  all  who  desire  to 
follow  the  example  and  imitate  the  spirit  of  the  Nazarene. 
She  should  join  hands  with  all  economic  reformers,  and 
strive  to  give  to  our  country  that  deep  moral  and  religious 
foundation  which  is  absolutely  necessary  to  her  highest 
development. 

If  all  this  be  done,  then  our  fondest  dreams  may  be 
realized  ;  but  if  not,  then  the  fate  awaits  our  country  that 
has  befallen  other  nations,  which  the  Lord  has  destroyed. 
Consider  their  fate,  as  graphically  and  eloquently  described 
by  Dr.  Farrar  : 

''When  Israel  w^as  a  child,"  he  says,  *'  God  loved  him, 
and  out  of  Egypt  He  called  his  son.  In  the  Old  Testa- 
ment we  see  that  son  grow  up  to  life.  Many  were  the 
sins,  the  follies,  the  apostasies  of  his  youth.  Can  you 
point  me  to  one  folly  which  was  not  visited  with  its 
natural  consequences  .?  to  one  pleasant  vice  which  did  not 
become  its  own  punishment.?  to  one  sin  which  was  not 
lashed  with  its  own  appropriate  scourge  t  Then  came  the 
ruinous  and  crushing  humiliation  of  the  Babylonish  Cap- 
tivity— about  600  or  700  years  before  Christ.  A  remnant, 
which  they  themselves  compared  to  the  chaff  of  wheat, 
returned  ;  and  of  the  old  temptation,  the  temptation  to  a 
sensual  idolatry,  they  were  cured  forever.  Bat  they  were 
not  saved  from  other  sins.  Keeping  the  form  of  their 
religion  they  lost  its  spirit :  from  a  living  truth  they  suf- 
fered it  to  degenerate  into  a  meaningless  ritual,  into  a  dead 
formula,  into  a  hypocritical  sham.  They  had  for  centuries 
been  hoping,   dreaming,   talking  of  a  Messiah,  and  their 


OUR  COUNTR  Y:  ITS  CHAR  A  CTER  AND  DESTINY,    i  2  7 

Messiah  came,  and  how  did  they  receive  Him  ?  With  yells 
of  '  Crucify  Him  !  Crucify  Him  1 '  And  there,  at  the  foot 
of  the  cross,  which  consummated  their  iniquity,  you  may 
read  the  story  of  their  nation's  death.  But  history,  which 
proves  the  responsibility  of  nations  as  of  individuals,  adds 
another  chapter  to  the  sacred  narrative.  It  shows  how 
soon  the  wings  of  every  vulture  flapped  heavily  over  the 
corpse  of  a  nation  that  had  sunk  into  moral  rottenness. 

"  Turn  from  Judaea  to  the  short  but  splendid  tragedy  of 
Athenian  history  :  how  short,  how  brilliant,  how  terrible, 
we  all  know.  Yes,  we  owe  to  Greece  an  infinite  debt  of 
intellectual  gratitude.  The  exquisite  ideal  of  beauty  of  her 
race,  the  grace,  the  subtlety,  the  activity  of  her  intellect  ; 
the  perfection  and  supremacy  of  her  art ;  the  power  and 
splendor  of  her  literature,  conferred  upon  her  a  wreath  of  un- 
fading admiration.  Oh,  had  she  but  learned  righteousness  ; 
had  she  but  won  the  grace  to  obey,  as  she  had  received 
the  insight  to  read,  that  law  written  upon  the  fleshly  tablets 
of  her  hearts  !  But  she  chose  otherwise ;  and  now  the 
world  may  learn  as  memorable  a  lesson  from  the  rapidity 
of  her  fall  and  the  utterness  of  her  extinction,  as  from  all 
besides  ;  for  the  ever-needed  moral  of  that  little  hour  in 
which  she  played  her  part  upon  the  lighted  stage  is  this — 
that  intellect  without  holiness,  beauty  without  purity,  elo- 
quence without  conscience,  art  without  religion,  insight 
without  love,  are  but  blossoms  whose  root  and  life  are  the 
corruption  of  the  grave. 

"From  the  palsied  hands  of  Greece  Rome  rudely 
snatched  the  sceptre.  And  you  know  that  so  long  as  the 
character  of  Rome  was  simple  and  self-respecting  ;  so 
long  as  her  family  life  was  pure  and  sweet  :  so  long  as  she 
was  the  Rome  of  the  Camilli,  the  Cincinnati,  the  Fabii,  the 
elder  Scipios  ;  so  long  as  her  dictators  came  from  the  honest 
labor  of  the  ploughshare,  and  her  consuls  from  the  hardy 
self-reliance  of  the  farm,  so  long  she  prospered  till  none 
could  withstand  her,  and  impressed  the  world  with  lessons 
of  law  and  order  and  discipline  manlier  and  better  than  any 
which  Greece  had  taught.  But  when  the  dregs  of  every 
foreign  iniquity  poured  their  noisome  stream  into  the  Tiber  ; 
when  the  old  iron  discipline  yielded  to  an  effeminate  luxury 
and  a  gilded  pollution  ;  when  her  youth  had  grown  debased 
and  enervated  and  false  ;  when  all  regard  had  been  lost 
for  man's  honor,  and  woman's  purity  ;  when  her  trade  had 


128  TOPICS  OF  THE  TIMES, 

become  a  flagrant  imposture  and  her  religion  a  dishonest 
sham ;  when,  lastly,  her  literature  became  a  seething 
scum  of  cynicism  and  abomination  such  as  degraded  the 
very  conception  of  humanity — then  you  know  how  justly, 
in  long,  slow  agony,  the  charnelhouse  of  her  dominion 
crumbled  away  under  the  assaults  of  her  enemies,  and 

"  '  Rome,  whom  mightiest  kingdoms  curtsied  to, 
Like  a  forlorn  and  desperate  castaway. 
Did  shameful  execution  on  herself.'  " 

I  need  not  apply  all  this  in  detail  to  our  country,  for  any 
one  with  an  open  eye  and  a  reflecting  mind,  must  see 
some  very  striking  resemblances  between  decaying  Ro- 
man civilization  and  our  own  Republic.  In  both  we  see 
political  corruption,  depraved  social,  moral,  and  religious 
life,  and  inordinate  immigration.  But  let  us  hope  that 
our  people  will  arouse  themselves  in  time  to  prevent  the 
fate  of  Rome  befalling  us.  Let  us  lay  to  heart  these  pro- 
found words  of  James  Anthony  Froude  :  "  History,"  he 
says,  ''is  a  voice  forever  sounding  across  the  centuries 
the  laws  of  right  and  wrong.  Opinions  alter,  manners 
change,  creeds  rise  and  fall,  but  the  moral  law  is  written 
on  the  tablets  of  eternity.  For  every  false  word  or  un- 
righteous deed,  for  cruelty  and  oppression,  for  lust  and 
vanity,  the  price  has  to  be  paid  at  last :  not  always  by  the 
chief  offenders,  but  paid  by  some  one.  Justice  and  truth 
alone  endure  and  live.  Injustice  and  falsehood  may  be 
longlived,  but  doomsday  comes  at  last  to  them  in  French 
revolutions  and  other  terrible  ways.  That  is  the  lesson  of 
History  !  " 


THE  SABBATH  QUESTION, 


izg 


SERMON  II. 

THE  SABBATH  QUESTION. 

Text : — And  he  said  unto  them,  The  Sabbath  was  made  for  man,  and 
not  man  for  the  Sabbath.— Mark  ii.  27. 

The  Sabbath  Question  is  one  of  the  most  important 
questions  of  our  day.  The  religious  life  of  a  people  can 
be  correctly  measured  by  their  observance  of  the  Lord's 
Day.  When  France  abolished  the  Sabbath,  the  bloody 
flag-  of  the  Revolution  was  waving  over  the  land.  In 
this  country,  especially  in  the  West,  the  Sabbath  is  fear- 
fully desecrated.  Base  ball  is  played,  the  saloons  are 
open,  many  kinds  of  business  are  done,  the  churches  are 
sparsely  attended,  and  in  some  cases  you  could  not  tell 
from  the  appearance  of  things  whether  it  was  Sunday  or 
Monday.  Hence  in  this  sermon  I  shall  consider,  I. — The 
Origin  of  the  Sabbath;  and  II. — The  Necessity  of  the 
Sabbath. 

It  is  commonly  supposed  that  the  religious  observance 
of  one  day  in  seven  rests  upon  and  originated  from  the 
first  chapter  of  Genesis  or  the  Mosaic  Law  :  but  neither 
idea  is  true.  The  late  Hugh  Miller,  the  eminent  Scotch 
geologist,  in  his  celebrated  attempt  to  reconcile  the  state- 
ments of  Genesis  i.  with  the  facts  of  geology,  contended 
that  the  Hebrew  word  for  "day,"  (  yom)  means  simply  a 
period  of  time,  not  necessarily  of  only  twenty-four  hours, 
but  an  age  of  indefinite  duration — ^just  as  we  speak  of 
''our  day,"  meaning  our  age;  and  hence,  he  argued,  the 
writer  of  Genesis  meant  that  God  created  the  world  in  six 
ages  and  rested  the  seventh.  IMiller  attempted,  without 
success,  to  identify  the  '' ages"  of  geology  with  the  "days" 
of  Genesis,  and  urged  that  God's  Sabbath  is  the  period  in- 
tervening between  creation  and  the  final  judgment,  during 
which  He  is  performing  through  His  Son  the  work  of  re- 

9 


I^O  TOPICS  OF  THE  TIMES. 

demption.     In  short,  God,  he  said,  worked  six  ages  at  crea- 
tion and  is  devoting  a  seventh  to  the  redemption  or  rehg- 
ious   development  of  mankind,  and  commands  us  to  fol- 
low His  example  by  devoting  six-sevenths  of  our  time  to 
secular  or  worldly  matters  and  one-seventh  to    religious 
duties.     There  is  more  poetry  and  ingenuity  in  this  view 
than  truth,  and  few  commentators  will  now  accept  it  either 
as  a  satisfactory  reconciliation  of  Genesis   and  Geology, 
or  a  correct  account  of  the  origin  of  the  Sabbath.     An 
eminent    English  bishop,   Dr.   Goodwin,   of   Carlisle,    has 
shown  that  it  is  far  more  probable  that  the  week  of  seven 
days  was  in  existence  long  before  Genesis    was    written, 
and  that  the  form  of  its  first  chapter  is  due  to  this  fact,  than 
it  is  that  the  institution  of  the  week  is  due  to  the  first  chap- 
ter   of  Genesis.     We  know  that  the  seven-day  period   of 
time    was  in  use  in   Chaldea,  the  original  home  of  Abra- 
ham, at  least   2,000   years    before  Christ,  and  the  Sabbath 
was  also  observed  there.     It  is  pretty  certain  that  the  au- 
thor of  the  first  chapter  of  Genesis  lived  in  Chaldea,  and  that 
this    account    of  creation  was  written  there    possibly  by 
Abraham  or  some  Chaldean  priest  or  sage.     The  writer  of 
the  account  wanted  to  express  the  idea  oi  progressive  crea- 
tion, and  so,  the  bishop  argues,  he  fitted  his  conception  into 
the  framework  he  found  ready  at  hand  in  the  existence  of 
the  week  of  seven  days.     Just  as  St.  John,  in  the  Book  of 
Revelation,  framed  his  vision  of  the  heavenly  Jerusalem 
upon  the  pattern  of  the  earthly  Jerusalem,  without  intend- 
ing that  it  should  be  taken  as  a  literal  description  of  facts, 
so  the  seer  of  Genesis  fitted  his  vision  of  creation  into  the 
framework  of  the  week,  thereby  expressing  the  idea  of  pro- 
gressive creation,  but  not  intending  that  it  should  be  in- 
terpreted as  a  literal  description  of  facts.     This  view  seems 
to  me  highly  rational  and  probable,  for  Genesis  thus  becomes 
a  witness  to  the  existence  of  the  Sabbath  and  the  week  of 
seven  days,  and  at  the  same  time  all  the  difficulties  in  this 
narrative    which    have    hitherto    perplexed  scientists   and 
theologians  vanish. 

If  the  idea  that  the  Sabbath  and  seven-day  period  orig- 
inated from  Genesis  i.,  is  false,  the  notion  that  it  was  estab- 
lished by  Moses  at  Mount  Sinai  is  a  greater  mistake.  The 
very  command  itself,  to  '' remember  the  Sabbath  day 
to  keep  it  holy,"  shows  that  it  existed  prior  to  that  time, 
for  otherwise  it  would  be  absurd  to  bid    people   to   "re- 


THE  SA  BBA  TH  Q  UES  TION.  1 3 1 

member"  it.  It  is  probable  that  the  week  of  seven  days 
existed  not  only  in  Chaldea  but  also  in  Egypt,  and  even 
among  the  Patriarchs.  In  Genesis  xxix.  27,  we  read  that 
Laban  commanded  Jacob  when  he  married  Leah  to  "■  fulfil 
her  week,"  the  seven  days  assigned  for  wedding  festivities, 
and  in  Genesis  1. 10,  we  read  that  Joseph  made  a  mourn- 
ing for  his  father's  death  "seven  days."  While  these  pas- 
sages do  not  prove  unanswerably  that  the  week  of  seven 
days  existed  among  the  Patriarchs,  they  do  suggest  that 
such  a  division  of  time  was  common  and  familiar  to  them, 
and  succeeding  events  seem  to  justify  the  conclusion  that 
the  week  did  exist  then.  "At  any  rate,"  says  Rev.  Dr. 
Smith,  in  his  "  Old  Testament  History,"  "the  whole  tone 
of  the  narrative  (in  Exodus  xx. )  is  inconsistent  with  the  idea 
that  the  Sabbath  was  first  instituted  at  Sinai." 

It  may  be  thought  that  the  reason  given  in  the  Fourth 
Commandment  for  the  observance  of  the  Sabbath,  viz., 
because  "  in  six  days  the  Lord  created  the  heavens  and 
the  earth  and  rested  the  seventh,"  proves  that  the  Sabbath 
did  take  its  origin  from  the  first  chapter  of  Genesis.  But  Dr. 
Ewald,  of  Germany,  the  eminent  historian  of  Israel,  Canon 
Cook,  the  Bishop  of  Carlisle,  and  other  high  authorities 
have  shown  that  this  was  probably  an  addition  to  the  origi- 
nal commandment.  As  the  Ten  Commandments  orig- 
inally stood,  say  these  commentators,  the  second  and 
fourth  w^ere  as  short  as  the  first  now  is.  They  read 
simply  :  "Thou  shalt  not  make  to  thyself  any  graven 
image;"  "Thou  shalt  remember  the  Sabbath  day  to 
keep  it  holy."  But  a  later  editor  of  the  Mosaic  Laws, 
desiring  some  additional  Scriptural  authority  for  this  com- 
mand, assigned  the  narrative  of  Genesis  as  such  au- 
thority. 

Hence  we  are  justified  in  concluding  that  the  week  of 
seven  days  and  the  Sabbath  existed  in  Chaldea  before  the 
time  of  Abraham  and  in  Egypt  before  the  time  of  Moses, 
and  that  the  form  of  Genesis  i.  and  the  Fourth  Command- 
ment are  due  to  this  fact.  Moses  did  not  establish  for 
the  first  time  the  Sabbath,  but  merely  revived  and  con- 
firmed it. 

From  his  day  to  the  time  of  Christ,  it  is  well  known,  one 
day  in  seven  was  more  or  less  faithfully  observed  by  the 
Israelites  as  their  Sabbath,  and  that  day  seems  to  have  cor- 
responded to  our  Saturday.     But  after  the  death  of  Christ 


132 


TOPICS  OF  THE  TIMES, 


the  Sabbath  was  changed  from  the  seventh  to  the  first  day 
of  the  week,  not  by  any  decree  of  the  Church,  but  simply 
by  the  usage  of  the  Apostles.  Our  Lord  rose  from  the  dead 
on  the  first  day  of  the  week  and  appeared  to  the  Apostles 
once  or  twice  on  the  same  day.  Hence  we  find  the  dis- 
ciples, without  any  formal  decision,  coming  together  to 
"  break  bread,"  that  is,  celebrate  the  holy  communion,  say 
prayers  and  preach  on  the  first  day  of  the  week,  and  this 
was  finally  established  as  the  Christian  Sabbath. 

The  Sabbatarians  make  much  of  the  fact  that  there  is  no 
explicit  command  in  the  New  Testament  that  the  first  in- 
stead of  the  seventh  da)?"  of  the  week  should  be  observed 
as  the  Sabbath.  It  is  sufficient  to  answer  :  (i)  While  the 
Apostles  and  New  Testament  writers  did  not  by  word 
change  the  Sabbath  from  the  seventh  to  the  first  day  of  the 
week,  they  did  so  by  deed — by  actually  observing  this  day 
as  their  Sabbath  ;  and  (2)  St.  Paul  positively  denounces  this 
stickling  about  the  Jewish  Sabbath.  "  One  man  "  (he  says) 
"  esteemeth  one  day  above  another ;  another  esteemeth  every 
day  alike."  Shall  the  latter,  therefore,  be  condemned  as 
un-Christian  .?  No!  he  answers.  "Let  every  man  be 
fully  persuaded  in  his  own  mind.  He  that  regardeth  the 
day  regardeth  it  unto  the  Lord,  and  he  that  regardeth  not 
the  day,  to  the  Lord  he  doth  not  regard  it."  More  plainly 
still.  "  Let  no  man  judge  you  "  (he  says)  "in  meat,  or  in 
drink,  or  in  respect  of  a  holy  day,  or  of  the  new  moon,  or 
of  the  Sabbath  days,  which  are  a  shadow  of  things  to  come  " 
(Col.  ii.  16,  17).  \x\  other  words,  the  Apostle  meant  to 
say  that  there  is  really  no  inherent,  necessary  difference 
between  days.  The  same  sun  shines  on  Monday  that 
shines  on  Sunday  or  Saturday.  One  day  in  God's  sight 
is  just  as  holy  as  another;  all  time  is  sacred  and  should 
be  faithfully  and  sacredly  used,  and  as  the  Jewish  Church 
had  a  right  to  establish  its  holydays,  so  the  Christian  had 
a  right  to  ordain  its  holy  days.  The  seventh  day  of  the 
week  was  holy  or  "hallowed"  in  the  Jewish  Church,  not 
because  it  was  intrinsically  different  from  any  other  day  of 
the  week,  but  simply  because  it  was  devoted  to  religious 
exercises. 

We  "hallow"  or  "consecrate"  a  church  building,  not 
by  constructing  it  out  of  different  and  more  sacred  material 
than  that  used  in  other  buildings,  for  that  is  not  done,  but 
merely  by  setting  it  apart  for  religious  purposes.     And  so 


THE  SA  BBA  TH  Q  UES  TION.  1 3  3 

one  day  in  seven  seemed  a  fair  proportion  of  time  to  de- 
vote to  religious  services,  and  the  Israelites  chose  the 
seventh  day  as  their  Sabbath,  but  that  was  a  mere 
"shadow"  of  better  things  to  come.  The  earthly  Sab- 
bath is  an  emblem  of  eternal  rest  ;  and  since  there  is  no 
difference  in  the  nature  of  days — since  the  first  day  of 
the  week  was  made  most  sacred  and  hallowed  by  the 
resurrection  of  the  Lord  from  the  dead  on  that  day — the 
early  Christians  were  quite  justified  in  changing  the  Sab- 
bath from  the  seventh  to  the  first  day  of  the  week.  Moses 
was  not  greater  than  Paul  or  any  other  of  the  Apostlea,  and 
as  the  Christians  threw  off  the  yoke  of  the  Jewish  cere- 
monial law,  it  was  quite  right  that  this  part  of  it  should 
be  thrown  off  also. 

II.  But  in  our  day  not  only  the  authority  of  Moses, 
but  even  the  authority  of  Christ  and  St.  Paul  is  rejected. 
Many  care  little  what  these  great  religious  teachers  taught 
or  what  was  the  origin  of  the  Sabbath  ;  they  would  abolish 
it  altogether  as  a  religious  festival,  and  hence  we  are  called 
upon  to  show  the  need  of  a  Sabbath.  Fortunately  this  can 
easily  be  done.  "The  Sabbath  was  made  for  man,"  it 
rests  upon  the  physical,  mental,  moral,  and  religious  nee- 
cessilies  of  human  nature,  and  hence  its  abolition  is  impos- 
sible. As  long  as  man  exists  there  will  be  need  of  the 
Sabbath. 

First  of  all,  man  needs  the  Sabbath  as  a  rest  day.  After 
six  days  of  continuous  labor,  whether  with  head  or  hand, 
every  one  feels  the  need  of  rest,  and  experience  has  shown 
that  one  day  in  seven  is  the  best  proportion  of  time  to  de- 
vote to  rest.  One  day  in  ten  has  been  established  as  a  rest 
day,  but  it  proved  to  be  insufficient  for  man's  physical 
needs,  and  so  the  seventh  day  was  readopted.  Very  few, 
if  any,  deny  the  need  of  the  Sabbath  as  a  rest  day,  but  the 
mode  of  otherwise  observing  it  is  the  question,  and  this 
must  be  settled  by  the  conditions  of  the  people.  The  man 
who  works  ten  hours  a  day  in  the  shop,  or  twelve  or  four- 
teen hours  a  day  on  the  farm,  during  the  week,  will  per- 
haps need  ^// of  Sunday  to  rest  his  tired  limbs,  and  we 
need  not  be  surprised  if  he  does  not  attend  church  on  Sun- 
day. Indeed,  lam  not  sure  that  a  man,  who  has  a  family 
depending  upon  him  for  food  and  clothing,  will  not  be 
doing  God  a  better  and  more  acceptable  service  by  resting 
at  home  on  Sunday  in  order  to  be  able  to  win  bread  for  his 


134  TOPICS  OF  THE   TIMES. 

wife  ana  children  during  the  week,  than  he  would  be  io 
walk  one,  two  or  five  miles  to  listen  to,  or  rather  dream 
through,  a  dull  service  or  sermon.  The  only  way  by  which 
we  may  secure  the  attendance  of  such  people  at  religious 
services  is  by  giving  them  half  of  Saturday  as  a  holiday 
and  bettering  their  condition  generally.  It  is  wholly  un- 
reasonable and  un-Christian  to  work  men  and  women  ten, 
twelve  or  fourteen  hours  a  day  up  till  dark,  Saturday  night, 
and  require  them  to  rise  early  enough  to  get  ready  and 
come  to  church  Sunday  morning.  If  the  Christian  em- 
ployers of  the  country  really  wish  to  promote  the  religious 
welfare  of  their  employes,  or  indeed  their  own  interests, 
they  will  give  them  Saturday  afternoon  as  a  holiday. 

Secondly,  the  Sabbath  is  needed  for  the  mental  develop- 
ment of  man.  As  just  intimated,  the  great  mass  of  men 
are  worked  late  and  early  from  Monday  morning  till  Satur- 
day night,  and  hence  they  have  neither  inclination  nor 
time  to  cultivate  their  minds.  Of  what  use  to  the  work- 
people are  our  public  libraries,  art  galleries,  museums  and 
parks.?  They  are,  of  course,  too  tired  to  use  these  to  any 
extent  in  the  evenings  during  the  week,  and  owing  to  an 
absurd  prejudice  they  are  closed  on  Sundays.  All  these 
places  should  be  open  at  least  part  of  Sunday,  say  from 
I  to  6  o'clock,  and  in  summer  the  city  bands  should  be 
allowed  to  play  in  the  parks  for  the  benefit  of  the  working 
people.  This  should  not  only  be  sanctioned,  but  it  should  be 
urged  and  superintended  by  the  Church.  One  great  reason 
why  the  laboring  classes  stay  away  from  church  is  just 
this  :  she  opposes  many  things  which  they  know  they 
need  and  should  have.  And  those  who  are  so  fanatical  about 
the  desecration  of  the  Sabbath  by  such  means  should  seri- 
ously consider  these  two  facts  :  (i)  They  do  not  get  the 
working  people  to  come  to  church  by  shutting  up  the 
libraries,  art  galleries  and  parks,  but  they  rather  embitter 
these  people  against  the  Church  by  their  opposition  to  the 
use  of  such  places  on  Sunday  ;  and  (2)  Would  it  not  be 
infinitely  better,  from  every  point  of  view,  that  the  poor 
people  should  spend  a  few  hours  on  Sunday  listening  to 
sweet  music,  looking  at  beautiful  pictures  or  reading  good 
books  and  papers,  than  it  is  to  shut  them  off  from  these 
pleasures  and  advantages  in  their  dreary  homes,  where 
they  nurse  bitter  feelings  and  hatch  dangerous  schemes  of 
There  can  be  no  question  that  the  safety  and 


THE  SABBA  TH  Q  UES  TION.  1 3  5 

welfare  of  both  Church  and  State  depend  upon  the  mental 
and  social  elevation  of  the  masses,  and  one  great  means  of 
such  elevation  would  be  the  use  on  Sundays  of  the  public 
libraries,  art  galleries,  parks,  etc.  If  it  be  said  that  after  six 
long-  days  of  work  the  laboring  people  would  not  feel  any 
more  like  using  these  places  than  they  would  like  going  to 
church,  it  may  be  answered  that  after  a  Sunday  morning's 
rest  they  ivould  enjoy  these  privileges,  and,  as  a  matter  of 
fact,  in  England  and  elsewhere  they  do  avail  themselves  of 
these  advantages.  Nor  need  this  at  all  interfere  with  the 
religious  exercises  of  the  day.  Those  who  would  come  to 
church  with  these  places  closed  would  come  if  they  were 
open.  Indeed,  if  the  Church  were  instrumental  in  furnish- 
ing such  advantages  to  the  work  people,  many  more  of 
them  would  in  time  come  to  church  than  do  now  come,  for 
the  education  and  refinement  they  would  receive  from 
this  beneficent  action  of  the  Church  would  naturally  tend 
to  draw  them  closer  to  it.  However,  in  deference  to  the 
religious  prejudices  of  many  and  perhaps  to  prevent  Sun- 
day being  wholly  used  for  intellectuar  and  aesthetic  pur- 
poses alone,  it  would  probably  be  well  to  open  such  public 
resorts  only  from  i  to  6  o'clock  on  Sundays. 

As  many  people  consider  Sunday  intrinsically  different 
from,  and  more  sacred  than,  other  days  of  the  week,  so 
they  are  puritanical  in  their  idea  of  certain  kinds  of  em- 
ployment, such  as  the  reading  a  novel  or  the  writing  a 
letter  on  Sunday.  But  while  some  novels  should  not  be 
read  on  any  day,  and  many  letters  should  never  be  written, 
yet  there  is  really  no  sin  in  looking  at  beautiful  pictures  in 
an  art  gallery  on  Sunday  (we  often  see  them  in  the  win- 
dows of  churches)  nor  in  listening  to  fine  music  (we  have 
it  m  the  churches  when  we  can  get  it,  and  it  is  often 
decidedly  operatic  music),  and  most  of  the  books  and 
papers  in  our  public  libraries  are  quite  as  edifying  as  the 
general  run  of  sermons.  Hence  the  distinction  between 
''secular"  reading,  music,  and  so  forth,  and  "sacred" 
books,  music  and  services  is  generally  artificial,  and  the 
choice  is  not  between  these,  but  rather  between  the  so- 
called  "secular  exercises"  and  something  worse.  The 
working  people  ivill  not  come  to  hear  hymns  sung,  the 
Bible  read  and  sermons,  preached,  and  the  question  there- 
fore is,  Would  it  not  be  better  to  get  them  in  the  libraries 
and,  galleries  and  parks  than  it  is  to  leave   them  in  their 


136  TOPICS  OF  THE  TIMES. 

houses,  the  slums,  the  '' commons"  or  the  saloons?  There 
can  be  but  one  answer  to  this  question,  and  that  is,  It 
would  be  far  better  for  all  of  us. 

But  while  I  am  disposed  to  grant  all  these  privileges 
and  advantages  to  the  working  people  on  Sunday,  I 
am  less  disposed  to  grant  them  to  those  who  have  plenty 
of  time  and  opportunity  for  reading,  riding,  driving  and 
otherwise  recreating  themselves  during  the  week.  It  is 
true  that  there  are  many  lawyers,  physicians,  teachers 
and  merchants  who  work  as  hard  as  any  shop-hand,  and 
these  should  be  allowed  the  Sunday  privileges  accorded 
to  him  ;  but  there  are  many  who  could,  and  who  do,  freely 
indulge  in  social  and  intellectual  pleasures  during  the 
week  who  would  also  devote  Sunday  to  this  purpose,  and 
upon  them  should  descend  the  condemnation  of  the 
Church.  But  the  hard-working  professional  or  business 
man,  who  attends  church  at  least  once  on  Sunday,  may 
be  excused  for  taking  a  drive  in  the  afternoon,  or  making 
a  friendly  visit  to  a  neighbor's  in  the  evening.  The  pro- 
viso, however,  in  this  case  as  in  most  cases,  is  very  im- 
portant :  he  should  not  neglect  his  church  and  religious 
duties  for  social  and  intellectual  pleasure,  and  this  brings 
us  to  our  last  point. 

The  Sabbath  is  not  only  necessary  to  the  physical  and 
mental  welfare  of  man,  but  it  is  more  especially  necessary 
to  his  7'eligious  development.  There  are  not  a  few,  alas  ! 
who  think  religion  and  the  Church  a  curse  to  humanity, 
and  would  therefore  wipe  them  from  the  face  of  the  earth  ; 
and  when  we  remember  what  cruel  forms  religion  has 
sometimes  assumed,  and  how  often  the  Church  has  been 
the  foe  of  light  and  truth,  we  need  not  wonder  that  a  few 
despise  them.  But  the  vast  majority  of  intelligent  and 
educated  men  believe  in  the  Church — in  some  sort  of 
religion. 

Man  has  a  moral  and  religious  nature,  and  its  cultivation 
and  development  are  even,  more  important  than  is  his 
mental  training,  since  his  passions  and  prejudices  are 
stronger  than  his  reasoning  faculties.  If,  therefore,  this 
desirable  result — man's  religious  development — is  to  be  ac- 
complished some  time  and  effort  must  be  devoted  to  this 
purpose^  and  surely  we  who  believe  in  religion  ask  very 
little  when  we  ask  that  one  day  in  seven,  or  at  least  a 
part  of  it,  be  set  apart  for  religious  work.     Every  think- 


THE  SABBA  Til  QUESTION: 


m 


ing  man,  every  patriotic  mind,  every  philanthropic  soul, 
must  admit  this,  and  should  aid  the  good  work  by  word 
and  deed — by  contributin.i^  money  to  and  attending  the 
services  of  the  Church.  The  work  of  the  Church  should 
not  be  thwarted  by  allowing  any  unnecessary  business, 
whether  it  be  base  ball  or  saloon  keeping,  to  be  done  on 
this  day.  The  running  of  the  mails,  the  printing  of  the 
newspaper  and  such  like  work  seems  necessary  to  man's 
intellectual,  social,  and  even  his  religious  development ;  and 
while  it  may  be  plausibly  argued  that  a  game  of  base  ball 
or  the  drinking  of  a  glass  of  beer  on  Sunday  is  no  more 
harm  than  reading  in  a  public  library  or  sending  the  mail, 
yet  these  latter  are  necessary  to  man's  highest  welfare, 
the  other  not,  and  the  line  must  be  drawn  somewhere, 
and  it  should  be  drawn  between  what  is  necessary  and 
what  is  not  necessary  to  man's  greatest  and  best  develop- 
ment. The  Sabbath  was  made  specially  for  the  spiritual 
improvement  of  man,  by  which  I  mean  his  emotional  and 
his  intellectual  as  well  as  his  religious  elevation.  The 
use  of  art  galleries,  libraries,  parks  and  newspapers,  and 
the  transmission  of  mail  are,  in  our  complicated  society, 
all  necessary  to  our  best  welfare,  but  base  ball,  the  sale 
of  beer  and  such  like  things  are  not  necessary,  and  should 
not,  therefore,  be  permitted  to  monopoHze  the  short  time 
allowed  for  the  work  of  the  Church, 

Having  thus  freely  admitted  that  there  is  much  truth  in 
the  modern  notion  of  the  Sabbath  as  a  day  of  rest  and  rec- 
reation— a  day  upon  which  those  who  cannot  enjoy  social 
and  intellectual  pleasures  during  the  week,  should  be  ad- 
mitted to  the  public  libraries  etc. — I  must  insist  that  these 
things  should  be  subordinated  to  the  religious  observance 
of  the  Lord's  Day.  Frederick  Robertson,  who  advocated 
the  view  of  the  Sabbath  here  set  forth,  said  :  "Esthetics 
are  not  religion.  It  is  one  thing  to  civilize  and  polish, 
it  is  another  thing  to  Christianize.  The  worship  of  the 
beautiful  is  not  the  worship  of  holiness  ;  nay,  I  know 
not  whether  the  one  may  not  disincline  from  the  other. 
At  least,  such  was  the  history  of  ancient  Greece.  Greece 
was  the  home  of  the  arts,  the  sacred  ground  on  which 
the  worship  of  the  beautiful  was  carried  to  its  perfection. 
Let  those  who  have  read  the  history  of  her  decline  and 
fall,  who  have  penned  the  debasing  works  of  her  later 
years,  tell  us  how  music,  painting,  poetry,  the  arts,  soft- 


138  TOPICS  OF  THE  TIMES. 

ened  an  debilitated  and  sensualized  the  nation's  heart. 
Let  them  tell  how,  when  Greece's  last  and  greatest  man 
was  warring  in  vain  against  the  foe  at  her  gates,  and  de- 
mandnig  a  manlier  and  more  heroic  disposition  to  sacri- 
lice,  that  most  polished  and  humanized  people,  sunk  in 
pleasure  and  sunk  in  trade,  were  squandering  enormous 
sums  upon  their  buildings  and  their  aesthetics,  their  pro- 
cessions and  people's  palaces,  till  the  flood  came,  and  the 
liberties  of  Greece  were  trampled  down  forever  beneath 
the  feet  of  the  Macedonian  conqueror. 

*'No  !  the  change  of  a  nation's  heart  is  not  to  be  effected 
by  the  infusion  of  a  taste  for  artistic  grace.  '  Other  founda- 
tion can  no  man  lay  than  that  is  laid  which  is  Jesus 
Christ.  Not  art,  but  the  cross  of  Christ.  Simpler  man- 
ners ;  purer  lives  ;  more  self-denial ;  more  earnest  sympathy 
with  the  classes  below  us  ;  nothing  short  of  that  can  lay 
the  foundation  of  the  Christianity  which  is  to  be  in  the 
future,  broad  and  deep.  '  " 

While,  therefore,  we  would  not  be  puritanical  in  our 
observance  of  the  Sabbath,  while  we  would  willingly  give 
up  part  of  it  for  the  cultivation  of  the  mental  life  and 
aesthetic  tastes  of  those  who  have  no  time  for  this  during 
the  week,  yet  we  must  insist  that  the  primary  and  main 
object  of  the  Sabbath  is  the  religious  development  of  man, 
and  it  should  not  be  used  chiefly  for  other  purposes.  Let 
the  moral  and  the  spiritual  come  first,  the  intellectual  and 
the  aesthetic  next.  Let  the  cultivation  of  the  mind  be 
preliminary  to  the  culture  of  the  heart  and  the  spirit.  For, 
as  Robertson  again  says,  "Experience  tells  us  that  those 
Sundays  are  the  happiest  the  purest,  the  most  rich  in 
blessing  in  which  the  spiritual  part  has  been  most  at- 
tended to — those  m  which  the  business  letter  was  put  aside 
till  evening  and  the  profane  literature  was  not  opened, 
and  the  ordinary  occupations  entirely  suspended — those 
in  which,  as  in  the  temple  of  Solomon,  the  sound  of  the 
earthly  hammer  was  not  heard  in  the  temple  of  the  soul — 
those  of  which  we  could  say,  We  were  in  the  Spirit  on 
the  Lord's  day." 

"Blest  day  of  God  !  most  calm,  most  bright, 
The  first,  the  best  of  days  : 
The  laborer's  rest,  the  saint's  dehght, 
The  day  of  prayer  and  praise." 


CRITICISM  OF  THE  BIBLE.  139 


SERMON  III. 

CRITICISM    OF    THE    BIBLE. 

Text : — '*  Prove  all  things,  hold  fast  that  which  is  good." — i  Thessalo- 
nians  v,  21. 

Every  ag-e  has  its  peculiar  and  distinctive  questions  or 
problems  to  solve.  In  the  time  of  Christ  the  great  problem 
before  the  Church  was  the  establishment  of  the  Messiah's 
kingdom  on  earth.  It  was,  how  could  the  Gospel  be 
successfully  preached  and  the  middle  wall  of  partition  be- 
tween Jews  and  Gentiles  be  broken  down,  so  that  both 
might  be  brought  into  one  fold,  under  the  one  Shepherd. 
To  this  end  great  missionary  journeys  were  made,  sermons 
were  preached  and  epistles  were  written.  In  the  sub- 
apostolic  age,  the  question  was,  how  to  formulate  doctrines 
so  as  to  exclude  error  and  organize  the  Church  into  an 
efficient  corporation. 

This  was  essentially  an  uncritical  age  so  far  as  certain 
facts  were  concerned.  Belief  in  miracles,  or  extraordinary 
interference  with  the  ordinary  course  of  nature,  was 
universal. 

It  was  quite  common  for  obscure  writers  to  attribute 
their  books  to  some  great  man  in  order  to  give  them  greater 
authority  and  influence,  and  the  authorship  of  writings  was 
not  rigidly  examined.  It  thus  happened  that  many  books 
were  ascribed  to  persons  who  did  not  write  them,  and 
events  were  l)elieved  which  are  now  incredible.  From 
the  time  of  Constantine  the  Great  (325  a.  d.)  to  the  sixteenth 
century  the  Church  was  busy  building  itself  up  into  a  great 
political  and  ecclesiastical  power,  and  its  officers  were 
often  not  only  profoundly  ignorant  but  grossly  immoral. 
When  the  Reformation  of  the  sixteenth  century  broke  out, 
the  great  question  with  Luther  and  his  co-workers  was 
how   to  throw  off   the  ecclesiastical    accretions  that   had 


I40 


TOPICS  OF  THE   TIMES, 


accumulated  around  the  apostolic  faith  and  order,  and  of 
course  in  doing  this  they  naturally  and  necessarily  ap- 
pealed to  the  Scriptures  as  against  the  commandments  and 
traditions  of  the  Church.  But  although  Luther  and  a  few 
other  Reformers  (Erasmus,  etc.,)  manifested  considerable 
critical  ability,  and  handled  the  Bible  quite  freely,  yet  the 
inspiration  and  authority  of  the  Bible  were  quite  generally 
assumed.  No  such  searching  examination  of  the  author- 
ship and  contents  of  the  Scriptures  as  this  century  has 
seen  was  dreamt  of  by  the  Reformers.  And  in  the  im- 
mediate post-Reformation  period  the  necessity  of  offering 
some  infallible,  ready-made  authority  in  religious  matters 
in  place  of  the  dethroned  "Infallible  Pope  and  Church" 
led  naturally  to  the  exaltation  and  acceptance  of  the  Bible 
as  an  infallible  guide  in  religion.  Thus  it  happened  that 
not  until  the  beginning  of  this  century  was  the  Sacred 
Book  of  Christendom  subjected  to  a  criticism  such  as 
other  books  have  to  endure.  The  popular  idea  that  be- 
cause the  Bible's  inspiration  and  authority  and  authorship 
■have  not  been  questioned  for  ages  and  have  been 
widely  questioned  to-day — because  it  has  been  believed 
to  have  been  written  by  the  persons  whose  name  its 
title-pages  bear — therefore  it  is  presumption  and  folly  to 
question  its  authority,  turns  out,  in  the  light  of  the  facts 
just  stated,  to  be,  as  most  popular  notions  are,  not  even  a 
half  truth.  During  the  last  century  the  sciences  of 
eeoloofv,  biologfY,  and  historical  criticism  have  been  born. 
Never  before  was  so  much  known  of  nature  and  her 
operations,  of  history  and  its  meaning.  Physical  science 
has  made  the  miracles  recorded  in  the  Bible  much  more 
incredible  than  they  were  in  former  centuries.  The  com- 
parative study  of  religions  has  played  havoc  with  tradi- 
tional ideas  of  inspiration  and  has  shown  how  naiiiraUy 
and  universally  the  popular  notions  of  God,  natural  re- 
demption, miracles,  etc.,  have  been  developed. 

But  while  many  think  that  science — physical  and  his- 
torical— has  destroyed  the  Bible  and  religion,  it  can  easily 
be  shown  that  it  has  simply  stripped  off  the  husk  and  left 
the  kernel  of  truth  untouched.  Those  who  think  that 
Criticism  has  destroyed  the  Bible  should  ask  themselves 
this  question,  If  this  is  so,  how  could  such  large  scholarly 
works  as  Ewald's  or  Kuenen's  History  of  Israel  be  pro- 
duced .?     Where  could  these  writers  get  materials  for  their 


CRITICISM  OF  THE  BIBLE.  I4I 

books  if  they  had  destroyed  the  Bible?  No!  they  have 
noi  destroyed  it.  On  the  contrary,  it  is  the  object  of  this 
sermon  to  show  that  they  have  really  done  a  grand  recon- 
structive work  ;  they  have  merely  separated  the  wheat  from 
the  chaff,  but  tliey  declare  most  earnestly  that  the  wheat 
is  there. 

First  of  all,  criticism  has  cleared  up  the  authorship  of  the 
books  of  the  Bible.  Thus,  to  confine  our  attention  to  the 
New  Testament,  it  has  shown  that  a  study  of  the  Christian 
orig-ins  must  begin  with  the  Epistles  of  St.  Paul,  since  these 
are  the  oldest  writings  of  the  New  Testament,  and  while 
some  radical  critics  reject  all  except  four  of  these  Epistles 
as  ungenuine,  it  is  now  pretty  generally  agreed  that  at 
least  eight  or  ten  of  the  Epistles  commonly  attributed  to 
St.  Paul  were  written  by  him,  viz.,  those  to  the  Romans, 
Corinthians,  Galatians,  Philippians,  Colossians.  Thessalo- 
nians,  Ephesians,  and  Philemon.  Even  those  critics  who 
reject  the  Pauline  authorship  of  some  of  these  Epistles 
admit  that  they  were  written  by  some  disciple  in  or  near 
the  Apostle's  time,  and  for  all  practical  purposes  they  are 
quite  as  valuable  as  if  they  had  been  written  by  St.  Paul 
himself.  To  make  this  clear,  suppose  it  should  be  proved 
that  Lord  Bacon,  not  Shakespeare,  wrote  the  plays  bearing 
the  latter's  name,  would  we  be  so  foolish  as  to  throw  aside 
our  Shakespeare  as  worthless.?  On  the  contrary,  would  it 
not  be  quite  as  valuable  as  ever.?  I  think  so  ;  and  hence 
when  we  are  shown  that  St.  Paul  did  not  write  the  Epistle 
to  the  Hebrews,  for  instance,  but  that  Apollos  probably 
did  ;  that  the  epistles  to  Timothy  and  Titus  were  not  written 
by  St.  Paul  but  by  some  disciple  in  or  near  his  time  ;  that 
the  same  is  true  of  other  epistles,  it  would  be  extremely 
foolish  to  reject  these  writings  as  worthless. 

All  that  criticism  proves  is  that  men  have  been  mistaken 
about  the  Bible,  not  that  the  Bible  is  false  and  unreliable  ; 
or,  at  most,  it  simply  shows  that  certain  details  of  the 
narratives  are  false,  not  that  the  greater  part  of  the  Book 
is  a  lie,  and  no  reflecting  mind  will  be  disturbed  by  such 
a  demonstration. 

The  same  may  be  said  of  the  Gospels.  It  has  been 
shown  that  Matthew,  Mark,  Luke  and  John  wrote  certain 
short  notes  on  Christ's  life  and  the  establishment  of  the 
Church  by  St.  Paul,  and  that  these  notes  were  worked  over 
by  other  disciples,  and  finally  our  Gospels  and  Acts  were 


142  TOPICS  OF  THE  TIMES. 

produced  in  their  present  shape.  What  then  ?  Are  these 
writings  unhistorical  and  valueless  ?     Not  at  all. 

On  the  contrary,  this  view  of  the  origin  of  the  Gospels 
enables  us  to  account  for  certain  slight  discrepancies  in 
them  which  worry  us  no  little  on  the  old  view.  Thus, 
when  we  read  in  one  Gospel  that  Jesus  healed  one  man 
near  Jericho,  and  in  another  that  He  healed  two  men  (see 
Luke  xviii.  35,  and  Matt.  xx.  30),  we  explain  it  by  saying 
that  these  conflicting  reports  got  into  circulation  by  being 
passed  from  mouth  to  mouth  among  the  disciples, — ^just 
as  difference  in  reports  of  events  in  our  own  time  arise — 
and  were  finally  incorporated  into  our  gospels. 

"Oh!  well,"  answers  the  unreflecting  individual,  "if 
that  is  so,  then  the  Bible  is  not  inspired,  and  I  will  have 
none  of  it." 

There  it  is  again  I  The  Bible  is  inspired — only  it  is  not 
inspired  just  as^ow  think  it  is.  The  Bible  is  all  right,  but 
your  idea  of  it  is  all  wrong.  The  Bible  does  not  claim  to 
be  inspired  in  every  word  and  passage.  That  is  a  fiction 
which  theologians  and  preachers  have,  most  unfortunately, 
added  to  the  Bible.  What  we  must  do,  therefore,  is  not  to 
throw  away  our  Bible,  but  simply  the  theories  about  the 
Bible  which  have  been  taught  us  from  our  cradle  up — the 
theological  cobwebs  that  have  been  woven  across  the  ark 
of  God's  covenant — and  then  we  will  be  able  to  accept 
and  appreciate  its  real  treasures. 

The  Bible  comes  to  us  just,  as  other  books  do,  and  it 
offers  itself  to  us  for  what  it  is  worth.  It  does  not  pretend 
to  be  a  perfect  Book  let  down  out  of  the  skies,  but  it  makes 
statements  about  persons  who  lived  and  events  that  hap- 
pened nineteen,  twenty-five,  thirty  or  forty  centuries  ago, 
and  it  tells  us  to  ponder  these  things  ;  prove,  test  all  these 
things,  and  hold  fast  that  which  is  good  ;  and  woe  unto 
that  man  or  that  woman  who,  through  intellectual  laziness 
and  spiritual  timidity,  refuses  to  obey  this  apostolic  injunc- 
tion !  ZTe  is  the  "  heretic  "  !  He  is  the  real  traitor  to  God  and 
Christ  and  the  Church  and  the  Bible  and  his  own  con- 
science and  reason,  and  for  all  this  God  will  bring  him 
into  judgment. 

Secondly,  Biblical  criticism  has  given  us  a  rational 
method  of  interpreting  the  Scriptures. 

It  has  been  universally  customary  to  build  whole  pyra- 
mids  of  theology  on  a   few  Scriptural  texts,  picked   out  at 


CRITICISM  OF  THE  BIBLE.  14^ 

haphazard,  without  regard  to  their  date,  authorship  or 
primary  reference  :  until  the  popular  caricature  of  this 
method  of  ''proving  "  things  from  the  Bible  seems  almost 
justifiable.  "The  Bible,"  it  is  said,  "sanctions  suicide ; 
for  it  says  'Judas  went  and  hanged  himself,'  and  it  adds, 
'  Go  thou,  and  do  likewise  !  '"  Of  course,  this  is  absurd  non- 
sense ;  yet  some  of  the  interpretations  or  rather  twistings 
of  the  Scripture  of  which  theologians  have  been  guilty 
are  equally  irrational  and  illogical.  Hence  comes  the 
popular  notion  that  "you  can  prove  anything  from  the 
Bible, "  No  wonder  that  Archdeacon  Farrar  should  exclaim 
in  eloquent  indignation  :  "Tyranny  has  engraved  texts 
upon  her  sword.  Oppression  has  carved  texts  upon  her 
fetters.  Cruelty  has  tied  texts  around  her  faggots.  Igno- 
rance has  set  knowledge  at  defiance  with  texts  woven  on 
her  flag.  Gin-drinking  has  been  defended  out  of  Timothy, 
and  slavery  has  made  a  stronghold  out  of  Philemon. 
Texts  were  quoted  by  the  devil  and  the  Pharisees  against 
our  Lord  Himself,  and  when  St.  Paul  fought  the  great  bat- 
tle of  Christian  freedom  against  the  curse  of  the  Law,  he 
was  anathematized  with  a  whole  Pentateuch  of  texts." 
Yet  the  Bible  does  not  sanction  tyranny,  oppression,  cruelty, 
ignorance,  slavery  and  the  suppression  of  free  thought. 
On  the  contrary,  it  is  the  foe  of  all  these  evils,  but  men — 
men  professing  and  calling  themselves  Christians,  have 
perverted  the  Bible — have  snatched  up  texts  here  and  there, 
and  hurled  them  at  the  heads  of  their  opponents,  until  it  is  no 
wonder  that  men  have  come  to  think  you  can  prove  any- 
thing by  the  Bible,  and  despise  it  accordingly.  But  criti- 
cism has  changed  all  this.  It  no  longer  satisfies  a  reflec- 
ting mind  to  have  a  few  texts  of  Scripture  cited  to  prove  a 
doctrine  or  a  fact.  He  wants  to  know  the  author  of  the 
text  and  of  what  authority  it  is.  He  insists  that  the  Bible 
must  be  interpreted  by  facts  of  science,  philosophy  and 
history,  and  that  all  these  cannot  be  rejected  because  the 
English  translation — not  the  original  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment— speaks  of  "science,  falsely  so  called." 

Criticism  and  investigation  have  shown  that  there  are 
other  "  Bibles  of  Humanity  "  besides  ours — in  Persia,  India, 
China  and  elsewhere — and  that  there  are  other  religions 
besides  the  religion  of  the  Jews  and  Christians.  But  shall 
we,  therefore,  give  up  our  Bible  and  our  religion .?  No  ! 
On  the  contrary,  these  other  bibles   and  these  other  relig- 


144  TOPICS  OF  THE  TIMES. 

ions  throw  lig-ht  upon  ours  and  help  us  to  understand 
ours  and  make  us  value  ours  all  the  more.  To  reject  our 
Bible  and  our  religion  because  other  people  have  books 
which  teach  many  of  the  doctrines  our  Bible  teaches  would 
be  as  foolish  as  the  action  of  a  woman  who  would  throw 
away  her  diamonds  because  she  found  that  some  one  else 
had  as  pretty  diamonds.  I  fancy  that  few  women  would 
do  this,  however  ready  they  may  be  to  throw  away  their 
Bible  when  told  that  the  people  in  India  have  profound 
Sacred  Books  very  much  like  ours.  All  these  discoveries 
simply  show  that  God  has  not  left  Himself  without  witness 
among  other  people  of  the  earth  besides  the  Jews. 

Alike  in  sunny  Greece  and  stately  Rome,  in  the  groves  of 
India  and  the  gardens  of  China,  in  scorching  Africa  and 
the  far  sweet  islands  of  the  sea,  as  well  as  over  the  hills 
and  valleys  of  Judah,  the  Sun  of  Righteousness  has  shed 
His  blessed  beams,  and  while  He  shone  most  brightly  over 
the  ark  at  Jerusalem,  the  rays  He  shot  into  "heathen  dark- 
ness "  proclaim  that  God  is  the  Universal  Father,  and  "in 
every  nation  he  that  loveth  God  and  worketh  righteous- 
ness is  accepted  of  Him." 

When  this  great  fact  is  fully  recognized,  when  the  Bible 
is  interpreted  by  facts  of  science,  philosophy  and  history, 
when  Christ  is  acknowledged  to  be  the  King  of  men,  the 
Light  that  hath  lightened  the  Gentiles  as  well  as  the  glory 
of  His  people  Israel,  the  Inspirer  of  Buddha,  Confucius, 
and  Socrates,  as  well  as  the  Teacher  of  Paul,  then,  but  not 
till  then,  will  the  Bible  regain  the  power  it  has  lost  by  the 
misinterpretations  which  have  been  put  upon  it,  and  then 
will  Christ's  Church  accomplish  its  mission  to  men.  In 
the  study  of  the  Bible  no  injunction  is  more  important 
than  that  of  the  text:  "Prove  all  things;  hold  fast  that 
which  is  good."  Search  the  Scriptures,  and  compare  them 
with  the  Scriptures  of  other  nations,  and  interpret  them  by 
facts  and  reasons,  and  thus  the  Bible  will  become  a  lamp 
unto  your  feet  and  a  light  unto  your  path. 

Third,  Criticism  has  given  us  a  correct  idea  of  miracles. 

The  popular  idea  of  miracles  is  this  :  Christ  was  God  ; 
all  things  are  possible  with  God  ;  the  Bible  says  Christ 
wrought  miracles;  the  Bible  is  inspired;  therefore  we  must 
accept  the  miracles,  word  for  word,  as  they  stand  recorded 
in  the  Bible,  and  the  more  incredible  they  seem  the  more 
faith  we  exercise. 


CRITICISM  OF  THE  BIBLE.  145 

Criticism  answers  :  With  God  all  things  are,  indeed,  pos- 
sible ;  it  is  possible  that  God  should  turn  the  world  upside 
down  or  stop  the  sun  in  its  course,  but  He  does  not  do  it. 
Christ  was  indeed  God's  Son,  "  God  manifest  in  the 
flesh,"'  but  He  himself  rebuked  the  Jews  for  seeking 
"signs"  instead  of  accepting  His  words  for  their  own 
sake  ;  and  the  question  is  not  what  God  or  Christ  could 
do  ?  but,  what  has  He  actually  do?ie  P  And  in  answering 
this  question  we  must  examine  the  authorship  and  author- 
ity of  the  Book  that  records  Christ's  words  and  acts  just  as 
Vve  would  the  authorship  and  authority  of  any  other  book 
relating  similar  stories.  We  cannot  assume  that  the  Bible 
is  inspired  and  infallible,  for  inspiration  is  itself  of  the 
nature  of  a  miracle  and  must  be  proved  as  other  miracles 
are.  We  know,  too,  that  miracles  are  constantly  attributed 
to  ancient  heroes,  and  is  it  not,  therefore,  probable  that 
more  miracles  have  been  attributed  to  Jesus,  the  greatest 
of  men  and  religious  teachers,  than  He  actually  wrought.'* 
May  not  His  simple-minded  followers  have  mistaken 
purely  natural  events  for  miracles  }  May  not  the  cures 
He  worked  be  explained  by  causes  fully  recognized  by 
medical  science .?  May  not  His  raisings  from  the  dead 
have  been  revivals  of  persons  from  a  state  of  suspended 
animation,  which  was  so  common  in  the  East }  Jesus 
himself  said  of  Jairus's  daughter  :  "The  maid  is  not  dead 
but  sleepeth"  (Mark  ix.  24);  and  although  the  bystanders 
laughed  Him  to  scorn,  believing  the  girl  was  really  dead, 
may  not  the  Master  have  known  better  than  they .?  And 
may  we  not  have  in  this  story  the  key  to  an  understanding 
of  the  other  stories  of  resurrections  }  At  any  rate,  the 
critics  urge,  an  extraordinary  event  must  be  proved  by  an 
extraordinary  amount  of  evidence,  and  the  more  wonderful 
it  is  the  more  evidence  is  necessary.  The  very  fact  that 
Jesus  was  God's  Son  and  performed  wonders  would  lead 
to  the  attribution  to  Him  of  miracles  He  never  wrought. 
Hence  we  must  know  who  wrote  the  stories  of  miracles, 
when  they  were  written  and  whether  they  cannot  be  ex- 
plained by  natural  causes. 

"Oh!  well,"  answers  the  poor  frightened  soul,  "then 
the  Bible  is  all  a  lie  and  Christ  was  an  impostor,  and  so  I 
will  none  of  them  !  "  Not  so  fast,  my  good  friend.  There 
is  no  reason  for  such  precipitancy.  The  critics  have  not 
destroyed  a  single  object  of  your  faith  or  touched  a  hair 

10 


1^6  TOPICS  OF  THE   TIMES. 

of  the  Master's  head.  On  the  contrary,  they  have  shown 
us  that  the  miracles  He  wrought  were  performed  according 
to  the  laws  of  nature,  not  in  violation  of  them,  and  there- 
fore we  may  rationally  accept  them  all  without  doing 
violence  to  our  reason.  The  important  facts  of  Christ's 
life  are  not  the  wonders  He  performed,  but  the  life  He 
lived  and  the  words  He  spoke.  The  important  fact  of  His 
birth  is  not  the  number  of  human  agents  employed,  but 
the  production  of  a  perfect  moral  and  spiritual  nature — the 
influx  of  the  Divine  Spirit  into  Humanity  ;  and  even  if  the 
miracles  be  myths  (which  they  are  not),  they  yet  prove  that 
such  an  infusion  of  the  Divine  Spirit  into  human  nature 
occurred  when  our  Lord  was  born.  The  important  fact 
in  His  resurrection  is  not  the  nature  of  the  body  in  which 
He  appeared  to  his  disciples,  but  the  fact  that  He  revealed 
Himself  to  them  as  alive  after  death— He  made  His  living 
Presence/^// by  them — and  so  brought  life  and  immortality 
to  light. 

Thus,  you  see  criticism  does  not  destroy  your  Bible,  the 
miracles  of  our  blessed  Lord.  It  simply  asks  us  to 
interpret  the  Scripture-stories  of  miracles  a  little  differently 
from  what  we  have  been  accustomed  to  interpret  them  ; 
and  surely  this  ought  not  to  disturb  any  one's  faith,  for  dif- 
ferent interpretations  have  always  been  put  upon  the  Bible. 
When  it  was  believed  that  the  earth  was  flat  and  station- 
ary, the  Bible  was  interpreted  according  to  this  belief;  but 
when  it  was  discovered  that  the  earth  was  a  globe  and 
moves  round  the  sun,  the  Bible  was  interpreted  according 
to  this  knowledge.  It  was  believed,  until  recently,  that 
the  world  was  created  in  six  days  of  twenty-four  hours 
each,  but  since  geology  has  shown  that  it  required  millions 
of  ages  to  create  the  world,  the  first  chapter  of  Genesis 
has  been  interpreted  differently  by  all  high  authorities. 
Now  it  is  urged  the  stories  of  miracles  should  be  differ- 
ently interpreted.  They  should  not  be  rejected  ;  we  may 
rationally  accept  all  the  accounts  of  healing  in  the  New 
Testament  (and  most  of  the  miracles  Christ  wrought  were 
cures),  for  such  cures  were  simply  extraordinary  instances 
of  what  prophets  and  apostles,  Moses,  Elijah,  Paul  and 
others,  did — cures  like  those  well  known  to  medical 
science."  The  raisings  of  the  dead  were  revivals  of  per- 
sons in  a  swoon.  The  feeding  of  the  thousands  with  a  few 
loaves    and   fishes   was    a    reminiscence    of  the   ?ylaster's 


CRITICISM  OF  THE  BIBLE.  I47 

benevolence  and  spiritual  feeding.  The  turning-  water 
into  wine  was  a  reminiscence  of  His  attendance  on  joyous 
festive  gatherings.*  And  so  we  are  asked  not  to  give  up 
our  Bible,  but  merely  to  understand  it  a  little  differently 
from  what  we  have  been  accustomed  to  understand  it, 
and  those  who  have  adopted  the  new  interpretations  find 
the  Bible  far  more  interesting  and  instructive  because 
more  credible  than  ever. 

Finally,  criticism  has  destroyed  Bibliolatry,  the  worship 
of  a  book,  and  substituted  in  its  place  the  worship  of  the 
Spirit  of  Christ.  It  has  taken  the  Bible  out  of  the  Pope's 
chair,  where  the  Reformers  of  the  sixteenth  century  placed 
it,  and  given  to  Jesus  the  throne  of  His  kingdom.  The 
more  we  see  that  the  Bible  is  not  infallible,  the  more 
closely  we  cling  to  Christ.  While  the  miracles  He  wrought 
are  seen  to  be  only  extraordinary  instances  of  wonders 
performed  by  other  religious  teachers.  His  moral  and 
spiritual  character  and  His  divine  ivisdom  stajid  out  above 
all  others  proclaiming  Him  to  be,  in  an  unique  and  tran- 
scendent sense,  the  Son  of  God.  And  as  Dr.  Farrar  elo- 
quently says,  "  In  the  name  of  the  Son  of  God  is  the  secret 
of  our  progress,  of  our  security,  of  our  freedom,  of  our 
strength.  If  we  build  upon  Him,  we  build  on  the  one 
Foundation.  It  is  because  they  put  themselves  in  place  of 
Him  that  hierarchies  have  fallen  into  corruption  and  ruin. 
It  is  because  they  failed  to  comprehend  His  nature,  that 
philosophies  have  passed  away.  It  is  because  they  thrust 
the  dead  letter  in  the  place  of  His  living  Spirit,  that  religious 
movements  have  ended  in  hatred  and  obstructiveness. 
It  is  because  they  have  mistaken  the  dawn  for  the  conflagra- 
tion that  theologians  have  so  often  been  the  foes  of  light. 
But  no  Church  and  no  system  and  no  man  that  has  been 
rooted  and  grounded  in  Him  in  love  has  ever  failed  to 
increase  with  the  increase  of  God." 

Therefore,  my  friends,  let  us  rely,  not  upon  the  Church, 
not  upon  a  fallible  Book,  not  upon  a  system  of  Philosophy, 
but  upon  the  living  Christ,  whose  still  small  voice  speaks 
to  our  souls,  and  whose  history  is  recorded  in  that  Book 
which,  despite  all  slight  imperfections,  has  been  for  ages, 
and  is  destined  to  be  through  all  time,  the  religious  guide 
of  the    most    enlightened   portion    of  humanity.     It  has 

*See  Haweis's  "Picture  of  Jesus,"  pp.  57-60,  for  an  ingenious  "natural 
explanation  "  of  this  miracle. 


148  TOPICS  OF  THE  TIMES, 

nothings  to  fear  from  criticism.  It  will  simply  shme,  like 
burnished  gold,  all  the  brighter  for  being  rubbed.  Defects 
will  be  effaced,  mysteries  will  be  cleared  up,  blots  which 
the  unhallowed  pen  of  man  has  dropped  upon  its  sacred 
pages  will  be  wiped  out,  and  it  will  become  unto  us  the 
very  oracle  of  God.  Its  great  characters  will  come  into 
our  lives  as  powers  for  good.  We  will  walk  by  their  side  ; 
we  will  hearken  to  their  words  of  wisdom  ;  we  will  kneel 
with  them  round  the  throne  of  the  Eternal  I  Am.  We 
will  sit  with  old  Abraham  in  his  tent  door  and  help  him 
entertain  the  Three  Strangers,  or  walk  with  him  through 
the  land  of  Canaan,  whither  he  had  been  driven  by  the 
idolatry  of  his  native  place.  We  will  feel  with  the  dis- 
inherited Esau  as  he  cries,  so  pathetically,  ''Hast  thou 
but  one  blessing.?  Bless  me,  even  me,  also,  O  my 
father!"  We  will  lie  down  with  the  exiled  Jacob  on  his 
pillow  of  stone  and  see  the  angel  ladder  reaching  to 
heaven.  We  will  follow  the  outcast  Joseph  as  he  is 
taken  down  by  slave  traders  into  Egypt,  we  will  see  him 
overcome  temptation  and  rise  to  power,  and  we  will  join 
in  the  happy  reunion  of  the  old  Patriarch's  family.  We 
will  stand  with  unshod  feet  beside  Moses  at  the  burning 
bush  and  listen  to  the  awful  thunders  of  Sinai.  We  will 
march  through  the  wilderness  with  God's  children  and  eat 
the  heavenly  manna,  and  listen  to  the  prophetic  cry  of 
Balaam  from  the  top  of  Pisgah,  "I  shall  see  Him,  but  not 
now  :  I  shall  heboid  Him,  but  not  nigh  !  "  We  will 
follow  the  flashing  sword  of  Joshua  as  he  leads  the  armies 
of  the  Lord  of  Hosts  to  victory  in  the  Promised  Land. 
We  will  listen  with  bated  breath  to  the  Song  of  Deborah 
shouting  the  downfall  of  God's  enemies.  We  will  walk 
beside  David  as  he  follows  the  ewes  great  with  young 
over  the  rich  pastures  of  Palestine,  or  as  he  flees  before  the 
face  of  the  angry,  jealous  Saul.  We  will  stand  in  the 
magnificent  courts  of  Solomon's  Temple,  listen  to  its  soul- 
stirring  choruses  and  finally  behold  it  trodden  down  by  the 
heathen  conqueror.  We  will  sit  down  in  sorrow  with  the 
exiles  by  the  waters  of  Babylon,  and  weep  as  we  see  the 
silent  harp  hung  upon  the  willows  in  the  midst  thereof. 
We  will  hear  with  joy  the  decree  of  Cyrus  that  the  Temple 
should  be  rebuilt  and  the  Jews  restored  to  their  fatherland. 
We  will  listen  with  rapture  to  the  prophetic  declaration 
that    a  child  is    to  be   born,   a  king  is  to    be  given,  who 


CRITICISM  OF  THE  BIBLE.  I49 

will  restore  the  departed  glories  of  Judah.  We  will  fight 
the  chivalrous  battles  of  the  heroic  Maccabees  and 
Asmoneans  until  overcome  by  Rome  they  sank  under  the 
power  of  the  Edomite-Herod.  We  will  hearken  to  that 
Voice  m  the  wilderness,  "  Prepare  ye  the  way  of  the  Lord, 
make  His  paths  straight."  We  will  listen  to  the  angel 
song  over  the  heights  of  Bethlehem  ;  we  will  follow  the 
star-guided  Magi  to  the  manger  and  offer  our  precious 
gifts  at  that  sacred  shrine.  We  will  watch  this  wonderful 
Child  grow  to  manhood,  behold  Him  baptized  in  the  Jordan 
beneath  the  shining  wings  of  the  heavenly  dove  ;  we  will 
fast  and  pray  with  Him  in  the  wilderness  ;  we  will  follow 
Him  through  life,  struggling  against  sin,  opposition 
and  persecution  ,  until  finally  we  see  Him  stretched  on  the 
Cross  of  Calvary,  andheai  His  dying  words,  "  Father,  for- 
give them,  for  they  know  not  what  they  do;  "  "Father, 
into  thy  hands  I  commend  my  Spirit."  And  we  exclaim, 
**  Surely  this  Man  was  the  Son  of  God  !  " 


50 


TOPICS  OF  THE  TIMES. 


SERMON  IV. 

DID    THE    FISH    SWALLOW   JONAH  ? 

Text: — Then  certain  of  the  scribes  and  of  the  Pharisees  answered, 
saying,  Master,  we  would  see  a  sign  from  thee.  But  He  answered  and  said 
unto  them,  An  evil  and  adulterous  generation  seeketh  after  a  sign  ;  and 
there  shall  no  sign  be  given  to  it,  but  the  sign  of  the  prophet  Jonas  :  for  as 
Jonas  was  three  days  and  three  nights  in  the  whale's  belly;  so  shall  the 
Son  of  man  be  three  days  and  three  nights  in  the  heart  of  the  earth.  The 
men  of  Nineveh  shall  rise  in  judgment  with  this  generation,  and  shall  con- 
demn it:  because  they  repented  at  the  preaching  of  Jonas;  and,  behold,  a 
greater  than  Jonas  is  here.— Matthew  xii.  38-41. 

The  story  of  Jonah  is  a  great  stone  of  stumbling  and 
rock  of  offence  to  even  professing  Christians,  and  probably- 
few  of  them  believe  it,  while  the  skeptics  find  in  it  an 
eternal  source  of  amusement.  But  rightly  understood  it 
is  one  of  the  most  interesting  and  instructive  narratives  in 
the  Bible,  and  therefore  I  wish  in  this  sermon  to  give  a 
rational  explanation  of  it. 

It  is  claimed  by  the  traditional  school  of  theology  that 
we  must  accept  the  story  of  Jonah  m  all  its  details  be- 
cause it  was  endorsed  by  the  Lord  Jesus.  The  first  ques- 
tion therefore  is.  Did  Jesus  endorse.it  ni  full  }  Jonah  is 
referred  to  three  or  four  times  in  the  Gospels  :  once  in  the 
text,  again  in  the  sixteenth  chapter  of  IMatthew  ;  once 
more  in  Luke  xi.  29-32  ;  and  finally  in  Mark  viii.  11-13 
— or  rather  Mark  states  the  request  of  the  Scribes  and 
Pharisees  for  a  sign  but  does  not  mention  Jonah.  The 
Master,  it  is  said,  "  sighed  deeply  in  His  spirit"  when  He 
heard  the  request,  and  said,  "  Why  doth  this  generation  seek 
after  a  sign  ?  Verily  I  say  unto  you,  There  shall  no  sign  be 
given  unto  this  generation.  And  He  left  them."  Luke  re- 
ports that  He  said  :  "This  is  an  evil  generation  ;  they  seek 
a  sign  ;  and  there  shall  no  sign  be  given  it,  but  the  sign  of 
Jonas  the  pro])het.  For  as  Jonas  was  a  sign  to  the  Nine- 
vites,  so  shall  the  Son  of  Man  be  to  this  generation.     The 


DID  THE  FISH  SWALLOW  JONAH?  151 

men  of  Nineveh  shall  rise  up  in  the  judgment  with  this 
generation  and  shall  condemn  it :  for  they  repented  at  the 
preaching-  of  Jonas,  and  behold  a  greater  than  Jonas  is 
here."  The  sixteenth  chapter  of  Matthew  agrees  with 
Luke.  It  reports  the  Master's  interview  with  the  Pharisees 
and  His  reference  to  Jonah's  preaching  in  Nineveh,  but 
does  not  say  that  Jesus  referred  to  the  fish  swallowing 
the  prophet.  We  have,  therefore,  three  important  differ- 
ences in  the  reports  of  our  Lord's  words  on  the  occasion 
referred  to  :  Mark  says  He  simply  rebuked  the  Pharisees 
for  seeking  a  sign,  but  does  not  report  any  reference  to 
Jonah.  Luke  and  Matthew  (xvi.)  say  that  He  spoke  of 
Jonah's  preaching  to  the  Ninevites,  but  neither  says  that 
He  mentioned  Joriah's  voyage  in  the  fish's  belly  ;  so  that 
the  allegation  that  our  Lord  endorsed  this  part  of  this  re- 
markable story  rests  on  the  words  of  the  text  alone.  We 
deny  the  truth  of  this  allegation,  and  believe  that  the 
words  of  the  text  upon  which  it  rests  were  added  to  the 
real  statements  of  our  Lord  by  the  writer  of  the  text,  and 
we  assert  this  for  the  following  reasons  :  (i)  Such  differ- 
ences in  the  Gospels  as  those  cited  show,  and  external 
testimony  proves,  that  they  were  a  gradual  growth.  The 
disciples  of  Jesus  did  not  immediately  after  His  death  sit 
down  and  write  His  biography.  On  the  contrary,  they 
went  forth  preaching — telling  what  He  had  taught  and 
done — and  the  Gospels  were  not  written  for  fifty  or  seventy- 
five  years  after  His  death.  It  was  the  most  natural  thing 
imaginable,  therefore,  that  such  differences  in  the  reports  of 
His  words  and  actions  as  those  mentioned  should  get  into 
circulation  and  finally  be  inserted  in  the  written  narratives. 
We  know  how  hard  it  is  even  now,  when  we  have  short- 
hand writers,  to  get  an  exact  account  of  even  most  im- 
portant events  or  speeches,  and  nothing  but  a  false  idea 
of  inspiration  can  make  us  suppose  that  the  ancient  writers 
were  more  exact  than  the  modern.  But  inspiration  or  no 
inspiration,  the  fact  is,  there  are  the  differences  in  their 
reports  which  none  can  deny,  and  they  can  be  rationally 
accounted  for  only  by  supposing  that  we  have  the  gist  of 
what  our  Lord  said  and  did  with  more  or  less  added  or 
omitted  by  the  reporters.  (2)  The  report  of  His  remarks 
about  Jonah  itself  throws  doubt  upon  His  endorsement  of 
the  part  referring  to  the  prophet's  journey  in  the  fish's 
belly,     "An    evil    and    adulterous  generation,"    He  said, 


152 


TOPICS  OF  THE  TIMES. 


''and  there  shall  no  sign  be  given  it."  But  according  to 
the  text  He  immediately  proceeded  to  contradict  Himself 
by  pointing  to  a  most  wonderful  sign,  namely,  His  own 
resurrection  from  the  dead  !  "As  Jonah"  (He  is  reported 
to  have  said)  "  was  three  days  and  three  nights  in  the 
whale's  belly  :  so  shall  the  Son  of  Man  be  three  days  and 
three  nights  in  the  heart  of  the  earth."  A  pretty  way, 
that,  of  refusing  a  sign  to  the  wicked  and  carnally-minded 
generation  !  We  don't  believe  our  Lord  ever  stultified 
Himself  in  such  a  manner.  What,  then,  shall  we  believe 
He  said  on  the  occasion  referred  to.?  He  probably  said 
that  as  Jonah  was  a  sign  to  the  Ninevites,  so  He  (Jesus) 
was  a  sign  to  that  generation.  This  is  what  Luke  and 
Matthew  (xvi.)  both  say,  and  we  may  be  sure  that  they 
would  not  have  omitted  the  important  reference  to  Jonah's 
fish-boat  had  it  been  made,  and  therefore  w^e  must  con- 
clude that  this  is  an  addition  of  a  later  redacteur  of  Mat- 
thew's Gospel  obtained  from  oral  tradition.  By  this  means 
we  save  the  gist  of  these  narratives  and  explain  their  differ- 
ences, and  we  can  do  so  by  no  other  explanation.  It  is 
most  remarkable  that  many  learned  commentators,  after 
all  that  Biblical  Criticism  has  done  to  show  the  uncertain 
authorship  and  gradual  growth  of  the  Gospels,  should 
yet  insist  upon  pressing  our  Lord  into  the  service  of 
dogmatic  theology. 

We,  of  course,  have  no  objection  whatever  to  hearing 
His  testimony,  if  He  delivered  any,  on  the  subject  of  the 
authorship  of  the  Old  Testament  or  its  miracles,  but  we 
submit  that  it  must  be  shown  that  His  words  have  been 
correctly  reported  before  it  can  be  truly  said  that  He  en- 
dorsed such  stories  as  that  of  Jonah.  Believing  that  He 
did  not  endorse  that  part  of  the  prophet  s  history  which 
states  that  he  was  swallowed  by  a  fish,  we  are  free  to 
accept  or  reject  it  without  regard  to  any  supposed  utter- 
ance of  His. 

What,  then,  shall  we  think  of  this  remarkable  story  "i  You 
remember  the  points  of  the  narrative.  Jonah  was  a  prophet, 
the  son  of  one  Amittai,  who  was  also  a  prophet,  that  lived 
in  Gath-hepher  in  Galilee,  not  far  north  of  Nazareth.  He 
flourished  about  800  years  before  Christ  in  the  reign  of  the 
wicked  king,  Jeroboam,  the  second  monarch  in  Israel  who 
bore  that  name,  (see  Josh.  xix.  13,  2  Kings  xiv. ).  Jonah 
first  prophesied  in  Israel  and  Jeroboam  did  certam  things 


DID  THE  FISH  S WALL O ]V  JONAH?  \  5 3 

which  the  prophet  commanded,  but  finally,  we  are  told, 
Jonah  was  bidden  by  the  Lord  to  go  and  preach  in  Nineveh. 
He  refused  to  do  so,  and  took  ship  for  Tarshish,  a  city  in 
Spain.  On  the  voyage  a  great  storm  arose,  and  the  super- 
stitious sailors  at  once  concluded  that  they  had  done  some- 
thing to  offend  the  God  of  the  Sea,  who  was,  therefore,  de- 
termined to  destroy  them.  Upon  questioning  Jonah  about 
the  matter,  he  confessed  that  he  was  to  blame,  and  the 
sailors  immediately  pitched  him  overboard  as  a  sacrifice  to 
the  God  of  the  Sea.  Fortunately  for  Jonah,  a  big  fish,  with 
a  big  mouth  and  a  still  bigger  belly,  was  near  by  and 
kindly  offered  to  take  care  of  the  unfortunate  prophet. 
Jonah  naturally  accepted  his  offer,  and  after  a  three  days' 
journey  in  this  unique  vessel,  we  are  told,  he  was  belched 
forth  by  the  monster,  safe  and  sound,  upon  the  Syrian  coast 
— much  to  the  relief  of  the  fish,  no  doubt. 

After  such  an  experience  we  are  not  surprised  that  the 
refractory  prophet  should  conclude  that  there  was  less 
danger  in  preaching  to  the  heathen  Ninevites  than  there 
was  in  trying  to  escape  from  Jehovah  by  flying  across  the 
sea.  And  so  Jonah  went  to  the  great  capital  of  Assyria 
— a  city  nearly  as  large  as  New  York  and  there  pro- 
claimed that  within  forty  days  Nineveh  would  be  destroyed 
on  account  of  its  wickedness.  Wonderful  to  relate,  the  pro- 
phet had  not  preached  one  day  before  the  king  and  all  the 
people  and  even  the  animals  repented  and  put  on  sack- 
cloth and  sat  down  in  the  ashes  !  Truly,  Jonah  must  have 
been  a  mighty  preacher  to  convert  even  the  beasts,  for  we 
poor  parsons  are  satisfied  if  we  convert  a  few  human  sin- 
ners. But,  strange  to  say,  this  most  successful  preacher 
got  mad  about  his  very  success  and  complained  to  Jehovah 
that  he  ought  to  have  destroyed  the  Ninevites.  And  because 
He  did  not,  Jonah  went  outside  the  city  and  built  himself 
a  tent  and  sat  down  to  pout — nay,  he  even  prayed  that 
God  would  take  away  his  life.  Jonah  was  not  as  good 
a  carpenter  as  he  was  a  preacher,  and  so  he  seems  to 
have  botched  his  tent,  and,  therefore,  the  Lord  made  a  great 
gourd  grow  up  in  one  night,  whose  leaves  protected  the 
prophet,  and  then  He  sent  a  worm  to  gnaw  at  its  root  to 
kill  it.  And  then  Jonah  got  so  sorry  for  the  gourd  that 
the  Lord  had  to  remind  him  that  the  lives  of  the  Nine- 
vites were  more  precious  than  many  gourds.  What  shall 
we  think  of  this  strange  story .? 


1^4  TOPICS  OF  THE  TIMES. 

Suppose  the  Book  of  Jonah,  like  certain  other  old  manu- 
scripts, had  been  lost  until  modern  times,  and  we  had  just 
found  it,  what  would  be  the  first  question  we  would  ask  ? 
Manifestly,  we  should  want  to  know  who  wrote  it  and  when 
was  it  written  ?  Now,  we  do  not  know  who  wrote  the 
Book  of  Jonah,  nor  when  it  was  written.  Previous  to  the 
Babylonish  exile  of  the  Jews,  which  occurred  some  600 
years  before  Christ,  the  books  of  the  Old  Testament,  such 
as  Genesis,  the  Laws  of  Moses  and  the  rest,  were  left  to 
take  care  of  themselves,  so  to  speak.  For  many  years  the 
Book  of  the  Law  was  buried  beneath  a  mass  of  rubbish  in 
the  Temple  at  Jerusalem  (2  Kings  xxii.  8,  et  seq.),  and 
was  found  by  a  priest  during-  the  reparation  and  clean- 
ing of  the  Temple  somewhat  as  the  Bible  was  discovered 
by  Luther  in  the  library  of  the  University  of  Erfurt.  This 
discovery  led  the  good  king  Josiah  to  attempt  a  reforma- 
tion of  the  morals  and  manners  of  the  people,  which,  how- 
ever, was  only  temporarily  successful,  and  thenceforth  the 
Sacred  Books  were  tossed  from  pillar  to  post  until  after  the 
Babylonian  exile.  They  were  then  gathered  together,  by 
Ezra  or  some  other  scribe  or  scribes,  and  formed  into  a 
catalogue  or  canon  as  we  now  have  them.  The  earliest 
evidence  we  have  shows  that  the  Book  of  Jonah  was 
included  among  the  other  prophetic  writings  embodied 
in  this  canon  of  Sacred  Books.  But,  be  it  remembered, 
Jonah  had  lived  at  least  200  or  300  years  before  this  collec- 
tion of  the  Scriptures  was  made,  and  so  we  do  not  know  at 
what  time  during  that  period  or  by  whom  the  Book  of 
Jonah  was  written.  It  is  a  mere  assumption  to  say  that 
Jonah  himself  wrote  it, and  there  are  many  reasons  (two 
of  which  will  be  presently  stated)  for  doubting  such  an 
authorship.  But  certain  it  is  that  the  mere  inclusion  of 
the  book  in  the  canon  formed  after  the  Exile — that  is,  two 
or  three  hundred  years  after  the  death  of  the  prophet — 
is  no  proof  whatever  that  he  wrote  it  or  that  it  is  abso- 
lutely true. 

These  two  facts,  among  others,  throw  great  suspicion 
upon  its  authenticity  :  First,  the  miracles  it  relates  are 
so  wonderful  and  grotesque  that  only  the  most  over- 
whelming evidence  could  render  them  credible.  Sup- 
pose we  were  to  read  such  stories  in  any  other  book — 
say  the  Sacred  Books  of  India  or  Greece — and  we  really 
do  find  similar  stories   in   those  books — would  we  not  at 


DID  THE  FISH  SWALLOW  JONAH?  1 5  5 

once  either  reject  them  as  fables  or  demand  the  most  con- 
clusive evidence  of  their  genuineness  ?  Of  course  we 
would. 

Why,  then,  should  we  draw  the  line  at  Jonah?  We 
cannot  The  first  miracle  is  less  incredible  than  the 
conversion  of  the  heathen  Ninevites.  Imagine  a  mod- 
ern missionary  going  to  Shanghai  in  China  or  Tokio  in 
Japan,  and  proclaiming  that  unless  its  inhabitants  repented 
and  accepted  Christ  within  forty  days,  they  would  all  be 
destroyed ;  and  suppose  that  they  should  all  at  one  time 
in  one  day  repent,  would  not  that  be  a  far  greater  moral 
miracle  than  the  preservation  of  a  man  in  a  fish's  belly  for 
three  days  would  be  a  physical  miracle?  Certainly  it 
would ;  and  so  we  see  that  this  book  records  the  most 
prodigious  miracles,  and  we  are  asked  to  accept  them 
without  an  atom  of  evidence  save  the  mere  word  of  a 
book  whose  authorship  and  date  of  composition  are  both 
utterly  unknown.  Surely  no  thinking  mind,  however 
devout,  can  be  satisfied  with  such  a  proposition  ! 

Again,  we  find  no  reference  to  any  such  wonderful  con- 
version of  the  Ninevites  on  the  Assyrian  Monuments  that 
have  been  discovered  and  deciphered  in  modern  times. 
Dr.  Layard  of  England  and  other  eminent  explorers  and 
scholars  have  worked  for  years  among  the  mounds  of 
Nineveh  and  Babylon,  and  they  have  found  many  stories 
which  confirm  certain  narratives  of  the  Old  Testament,  but 
none  that  confirm  Jonah.  Suppose  now  that  Shanghai  or 
Tokio  were  to  be  converted  by  the  preaching  of  some 
modern  missionary,  don't  you  think  that  so  great  an  event 
would  be  fully  and  extensively  recorded,  and  explorers 
hundreds  of  years  hence  might  find  such  records 
among  the  ruins  of  the  city  ?  Of  course,  it  may  be  said 
that  we  may  yet  discover  an  account  of  this  event  in  the 
ruins  of  Nineveh  ;  but  there  is  not  much  prospect  of  it,  for 
those  mounds  have  been  very  carefully  and  thoroughly  ex- 
amined ;  and,  at  any  rate,  we  must  wait  until  this  discov- 
ery be  made  before  we  can  count  on  it.  Meanwhile  the 
story  of  Jonah's  converting  all  Nineveh  remains  uncon- 
firmed. 

Shall  we,  then,  reject  the  whole  Book  of  Jonah  as 
worthless  ?  By  no  means  !  We  might  as  well  reject 
gold  because  it  is  mingled  with  dross,  or  wheat  because  it 
is  surrounded  with  chaff.     The  rational  thing  to  do  is  to 


1 5  6  TOPICS  OF  THE   TIMES. 

strip  off  the  husk  and  accept  the  kernel.  Jonah,  as  just 
stated,  was  a  real  person  and  prophet  who  lived  about 
eight  hundred  years  before  Christ.  The  Israelites  at  that 
time  were  constantly  coming  in  contact  with  the  Assyr- 
ians, and  so  it  is  highly  probable  that  Jonah,  being  disgust- 
ed and  discouraged  in  his  work  under  the  wicked  Jeroboam, 
should  turn  to  the  Gentiles.  Being  a  Jew,  possessed  of  a 
most  exclusive  and  self-righteous  spirit,  he  would  naturally 
hesitate  to  preach  to  heathen  dogs,  and  would  be  willing 
to  suffer  exile  in  a  strange  land  rather  than  do  so.  But 
conscience,  that  mighty  vicegerent  of  God  within  man, 
which  taught  even  the  bigoted  Peter  that  * '  in  every 
nation  he  that  feareth  God  and  worketh  righteousness  is 
accepted  of  Him,"  and  must  not  be  considered  "  unclean" 
or  "common" — ^^conscience  once  thoroughly  aroused 
would  compel  the  prophet  to  go  to  Nineveh,  and  proclaim 
the  message  which  God  had  given  him.  As  a  consequence 
he  would  doubtless  convert,  not  the  whole  city,  but  perhaps 
many  more  than  he  had  converted  in  Israel,  and  this 
would  amply  justify  our  Lord's  reference  to  his  mission- 
ary labors.  Then,  years  afterwards,  his  biographer  might 
write  his  history  ;  meanwhile,  all  sorts  of  stories  would 
have  arisen  about  the  prophet.  It  would  be  natural  to 
say  that  he  tried  to  avoid  doing  his  duty,  and  in  order  to 
escape  this  irksome  task  he  attempted  to  flee  over  the  sea — 
perhaps  he  did — and  was  shipwrecked  and  stranded  on  the 
Syrian  coast.  The  fish  might  be  drawn  from  the  pop- 
ular imagination,  but  would  be  accepted  by  the  simple- 
minded  narrator  as  a  providential  means  of  deliverance  for 
the  unfortunate  prophet.  Then,  in  contrast  with  the  im- 
penitence of  the  Israelites,  it  would  be  natural  to  magnify 
Jonah's  success  in  preaching  to  the  Ninevites,  and  thus 
we  would  get  our  wonderful  story  of  Jonah. 

Of  course,  many  will  be  disposed  to  say,  ''If  all  this 
be  true,  then  the  composer  of  this  book  w^as  a  most  un- 
trustworthy individual  to  say  the  least."  Perhaps  so,  per- 
haps not.  It  is  a  well-known  fact  that  all  sorts  of  fan- 
tastical stories  gather  round  great  names  and  are  often 
woven  into  the  history  of  heroes.  The  absurd  stories 
about  General  Washington's  hatchet  and  so  forth  are 
now  known  to  be  the  products  of  popular  imagination. 
Religious  heroes  particularly  suffer  from  this  cause.  The 
most  grotesque  fables  have  been  woven  around  the  char- 


DID  THE  FISH  S  WALL  O IV  JONAH?  1 5  7 

acters  of  St.  Francis  Assissi,  Francis  Xavier,  Buddha,  and 
our  Lord  Himself,  and  we  can  only  get  at  the  truth  by  a 
careful  examination  of  facts.  Nor  should  we  accuse  the 
originators  of  such  stories  of  lying  or  dishonesty.  There  is 
a  strange  power  in  the  human  mind  by  which  it  will  slightly 
and  unintentionally  exaggerate  the  wonderful  character  of 
events  or  persons,  and  these  variations  from  fact  increase 
the  more  they  pass  from  mouth  to  mouth.  The  most, 
therefore,  we  can  accuse  the  writers  of  such  stories  of  is 
credulily,  and  we  not  only  accuse  them  of  this  but  we 
insist  that  it  was  the  most  natural  thing  imaginable  that 
in  that  early  age  when  science  and  criticism  were  unborn, 
people  should  be  credulous. 

*'0h!  well,"  answers  the  traditionalist,  ''then  these 
people  were  not  inspired,  and  I  will  none  of  them."  Not 
so  fast,  my  friend  !  These  people  may  not  have  been 
absolutely  infallible,  but  God  may  have  breathed  (inspired) 
into  their  souls  a  message  which,  despite  the  earthen  ves- 
sel through  which  it  passed,  is  or  may  be  a  very  real  in- 
spiration to  us,  may  be  of  great  importance  to  us.  At  any 
rate,  the  Book  of  Jonah,  interpreted  as  is  here  proposed, 
has  some  most  valuable  lessons  for  us. 

First,  it  is  one  of  the  earliest  protests  against  that  narrow 
bigotry  and  religious  exdusiveness  which  so  disgraced  the 
Jewish  Church,  and  now  disfigures  the  Christian  Church. 
This  book  stands  for  Universal  Religion.  God  taught 
Jonah  what  He  taught  St.  Peter  at  a  later  day,  that  he 
was  the  God  of  the  Gentiles  as  well  as  of  the  Jews,  that 
if  the  Jews  were  His  ''chosen  people"  they  were  simply 
chosen  for  the  purpose  of  teaching  His  religion  to  the 
whole  world  ;  they  were  not  chosen  out  of  mankind  as  a 
peculiarly  righteous  and  deserving  people.  Jonah  was  a 
grand  man — a  prototype  of  St.  Paul  and  a  Greater  than 
he.  Like  them,  he  emphasized  repentance,  spirituality 
more  than  ceremony,  privileges,  or  nationality.  He  con- 
demns by  his  example  all  those  who  think  themselves  better 
than  others  because  ihey  believe  more  than  others  or  because 
they  belong  to  the  oldest  Church.  And  surely  in  this  day 
when  Roman  Catholics  and  Protestants  abuse  each  other 
most  vehemently,  when  Presbyterians  denounce  Episcopa- 
lians, and  Episcopalians  rail  at  Methodists  and  Methodists 
abuse  both  ;  when  Lutherans  andZwinglians  fuss  with  each 
other  and  the  Baptists  condemn  us  all  because  we  do  not 


1-8  TOPICS  OF  THE   TIMES. 

accept  immersion  or  submersion  as  necessary  to  valid 
baptism  ;  when  the  whole  of  Christendom  is  torn  into  war- 
ring factions  that  bite  and  tear  each  other,  each  claiming 
to  be  the  true  Church  of  Christ  and  none  manifesting  the 
Spirit  of  Christ  to  such  a  Christendom,  Jonahs  prophetic  cry 
rings  out  across  the  ages,  proclaiming,  not  every  one  that 
saith'^Lord!  Lord," — not  everyone  that  flatters  himself 
that  he  is  the  chosen  of  God — is  accepted  of  Him,  but  he 
that  doeth  the  will  of  God,  the  heathen  Chinaman  as  well 
as  the  civilized  American.  "In  e^'ery  nation  he  that  feareth 
God  and  worketh  righteousness  is  accepted  of  Him/' 

"What  doth  the  Lord  require  of  thee  but  to  do  justly, 
love  mercy,  and  walk  humbly  with  thy  God  ?  " 

Secondly,  Jonah  was  the  great  missionary  of  the  Jewish 
Church,  and  so  he  again  rebukes  a  faithless  Church.  But 
for  the  Jonah-spirit  we  would  to-day  be  bowing  down  to 
stocks  and  stones  instead  of  worshipping  the  one  Living 
and  True  God.  It  was  the  Jonah-spirit  that  seized  Saul  of 
Tarsus  and  converted  him  into  the  greatest  of  missionaries, 
driving  him  over  land  and  sea,  through  perils  of  persecu- 
tion, paganism,  the  prison,  sickness  and  death,  until  the 
Torch  of  Life  had  flashed  from  Damascus  to  Antioch,  from 
Antioch  to  Athens,  from  Athens  to  Corinth,  from  Corinth- 
to  Rome,  from  Rome  to  Spain,  from  Spain  to  Britain.  It 
was  the  Jonah-spirit  that  sent  St.  Ultilas,  in  the  fourth  cen- 
tury, to  labor  among  the  barbarous  Goths  of  northern  Eu- 
rope. It  was  the  Jonah-spirit  that  took  possession  of  St. 
Patrick  in  the  lonely  forests  and  mountains  of  Ireland,  in 
the  fifth  century,  as  he  followed  the  ewes  great  with  young, 
and  converted  him  into  "  the  apostle  of  Ireland."  It  was 
the  Jonah-spirit  that  drove  St.  Columba,  in  the  sixth  cen- 
tury, from  his  Ireland  home  into  the  wilds  of  Scotland  to 
Christianize  the  heathen  Picts  and  Scots.  It  was  the  Jonah- 
spirit  that  moved  St.  Columban — another  noble  Irish  mis- 
sionary— to  forsake  his  beloved  Erin,  and  scale  the  Swiss 
Alps  to  do  the  work  of  his  Master.  It  was  the  Jonah-spirit 
that  made  Pope  Gregory,  m  the  sixth  century,  send  Augus- 
tine and  forty  other  monks  to  Britain  to  convert  the  heathen 
Saxons  and  Angles  into  ' '  angels. "  But  for  these  and  such 
like  missionary  labors  we  would  probably  be  bowing  down 
before  the  gods  whom  our  forefathers  worshipped  in  northern 
Europe.  Vet  professing  Christians,  who  owe  every  spiritual 
blessing  and  privilege  to  missions,  are   often  opposed  to 


DID   THE  FISH  SWALLOW  JONAH?  i^n 

foreign  missions  !  Truly,  the  old  Ninevites  will  rise  in  the 
judgment  and  condemn  this  generation,  for  they  repented 
at  the  preaching  of  Jonah,  and  behold  a  greater  than  Jonah 
is  here,  and  bids  them  "Go  preach  His  Gospel  to  ^z'er^ 
creature,  and  ye  will  not !  " 

It  is  often  said  by  opponents  of  missionary  enterprise  : 
"  If  the  heathen  will  be  judged  according  to  the  light  they 
have — if  they  will  be  saved  aiiy  way — why  preach  the  Gos 
pel  to  them  ?  "  To  deliver  them,  we  answer,  from  earthly 
hells  !  I  care  not  whether  there  is  any  hell  in  the  spirit- 
world  or  not  ( I  believe  there  is  ),  yet  the  Gospel  should 
be  preach^ed  to  every  human  creature  on  the  earth.  Jesus 
Christ  came  to  save  men,  not  from  a  distant  burning  prison, 
but  from  their  sins — to  deliver  them  from  the  hell  of  igno- 
rance, passion,  poverty  and  suffering  in  this  world,  as  well 
as  from  the  consequences  of  these  in  the  next.  For  this 
reason,  the  late  Charles  Darwin,  it  is  well  known, contributed 
liberally  to  the  support  of  foreign  missions.  He,  the  so- 
called  "enemy  of  the  Faith,"  was  animated  by  the  Jonah — 
nay,  by  the  Christ-spirit,  while  professing  Christians,  who 
condemn  him,  refuse  to  support  this  great  and  good  work  ! 
Verily,  I  say  unto  you,  the  publicans,  harlots,  and  skeptics 
go  into  the  kingdom  of  God  before  Christians  ! 

Finally,  the  story  of  Jonah   teaches  us  that  a  religion  of 
the  heart,  not  a  religion  of*  signs   and  doctrifies,  will  save 
us.     "An  evil  and  adulterous  generation,"  said  the  Divine 
Teacher,   "  seeketh  after  a  sign,  and  there  shall  no  sign  be 
given  to  it."     Most  people  are  more  anxious  to  see  a  mir- 
acle than   to  do  their   duty.      Such   persons  would  much 
rather  hear  the  fish-story  in  the  Book  of  Jonah  defended, 
than  to  be  told  that  they  should  follow   the  example  of 
Jonah,  and  go  and  preach  the  Gospel — the  Gospel  of  meat 
and  bread  to  the  heathen  in  our  great  cities.     The  one  re- 
quires only  a  slight   intellectual  effort ;  the  other  demands 
money,  time,  and  labor  :  and  these  "an  evil  and  adulterous 
and  hypocritical  generation  "  of  easy-going  Christians  are 
not  disposed  to  give.      There  are  Ninevehs  all  around  us. 
New  York  is  one,  Philadelphia  is   another,  Chicago  and 
Cincinnati  are  others,  and  even  in  smaller  cities  and  towns 
we  find  as  great  wickedness  as  that  which  the  old  prophet 
preached  against  in  the  Assyrian  capital.     The  same  voice 
that  bade  him  go  and  preach  to  the  old  Ninevites  bids  us 
proclaim  the  Gospel  of  Good  Deeds  to  our  fellow-men, 


l6o  TOPICS  OF  THE  TIMES. 

But  I  fear  that  nothing  less  than  a  sea-voyage  in  a  whale  s 
belly  can  arouse  some  Christians  from  their  indifference 
on  this  subject,  and  make  them  realize  that  conduct,  not 
belief,  righteousness,  not  ''signs,"  is  what  Christ  demands. 

Now,  then,  my  friends,  what  think  you  of  the  history  of 
Jonah  ?  Do  you  say  that  because  I  interpret  this  remark- 
able story  differently  from  what  some  others  do — that  be- 
cause I  reject  "the  fish  story  "as  "  not  proven  " — I  destroy 
the  value  of  the  narrative  ?  On  the  contrary,  its  real  value 
and  beauty  are  brought  out  and  emphasized,  and  its  truth 
made  credible,  and  this  is  what  rational  criticism  is  doing 
for  all  the  books  of  the  Bible.  , 

There  are  many  good  people  who  are  dreadfully  fright- 
ened because  some  critics  have  cited  mistakes  of  Moses 
and  of  Paul  ;  have  found  scientific,  historical,  and  moral 
errors  in  the  Bible.  They  cry,  "Great  Pan  is  dead  !  Their 
beloved  idol — an  infallible  Bible — no  longer  remains  and  so 
all  is  lost !  "  The  fact  is,  if  they  would  only  stop  to  con- 
sider it,  the  so-called  "destructive  critics"  are  doing  a 
great  work  of  reconstruction  for  which  future  generations 
will  rise  up  and  call  them  blessed.  They  are  simply  strip- 
ping off  the  shocking  and  incredible  accretions  that  have 
gathered  round  the  real  facts  and  truths  and  are  presenting 
us  with  a  rational  and  credible  Bible.  Thus,  what  is  lost 
by  treating  the  Book  of  Jonah  as  I  have  done }  Abso- 
lutely nothing  of  any  real  importance,  but  very  much  is 
gained.  We  see  that  the  fish  story,  while  not  literally  true, 
has  a  deeper  meaning  than  we  supposed.  It  expresses 
the  great  fact  that  Jehovah  had  to /brce  the  narrow-minded 
Jew  to  become  a  missionary,  just  as  He  forced  Saul  of 
Tarsus  and  others  since  his  time  to  do  the  same  work  : 
just  as  He  forces  many  nowadays  to  perform  disagreeable 
duties.  It  tells  of  the  mighty  operation  of  the  Divine 
Spirit  upon  the  storm-tossed  soul  of  the  prophet,  by  which 
he  was  "born  again,"  and  led  to  see  the  truth  as  it  is  in 
God.  Surely  such  a  criticism  should  be  gratefully  wel- 
comed !  Under  its  influences  "  the  unreal  Bible  "  vanishes, 
and  "the  real  Bible" — the  true  Word  of  God,  takes  its 
place.  The  old  saints  and  heroes  are  brought  very  near 
to  our  hearts,  and  their  examples  come  into  our  lives  as  a 
powerful  influence.  We  seem  to  see  the  great  missionary, 
clad  in  his  rough  prophet's  garb,  walking  up  and  down  the 
crowded  streets    of  Nineveh  like    a  modern   Whitfield  or 


DID  THE  FISH  SWALLOW  JONAH  f  l6l 

Moody,  or  a  Salvationist,  crying,  ''Yet  forty  days,  and 
Nineveh  shall  be  overthrovi^n  !  "  We  can  see  the  motley, 
eager,  curious  crowd  thronging  about  him,  as  they  did 
about  St.  Paul  in  Athens,  or  as  they  do  around  a  modern 
missionary  in  Shanghai  or  Benares,  wondering  what  "  this 
babbler  will  say."  We  can  hear  the  diverse  opinions  that 
his  preaching  called  forth,  some  saying  he  was  a  good 
man,  other  some,  "  He  seemeth  to  be  a  setter  forth  of 
strange  gods."  Above  all,  we  can  see  poor  old  Jonah 
sitting  under  the  shade  of  the  gourd-tree,  discouraged, 
dejected,  torn  by  a  sense  of  ViW^x  failure  after  the  most 
strenuous  efforts.  Ah  !  who  has  not  sat  under  Jonah's 
gourd  .?  As  we  see  him  sitting  there,  and  hear  his  heart- 
rending prayer  for  destruction,  we  think  of  a  Greater  than 
he — the  Man  of  Sorrows,  who  was  despised  and  rejected 
of  those  He  came  to  save,  and  was  pursued  through  life 
by  the  demon  of  failure,  against  whom  He  struggled  in  the 
awful  shades  of  Gethsemane,  and  whom  He  overcame  only 
when  He  yielded  up  the  ghost  on  the  Cross  of  Calvary  !  We 
are  saddened  ;  but  our  sorrow  is  turned  into  joy  when  we 
remember  that  the  work  of  Jesus  and  the  work  of  Jonah  was 
not  a  failure  after  all  !     Eight  hundred  years  after  his  death 

Jonah  received  an  eulogy  from  the  Saviour  of  the  world 

was  held  up  as  a  prototype  of  Himself!  Twenty-eight 
centuries  later  he  teaches  the  Christian  Church  its  duty  ! 
Ah  !  may  we  be  found  worthy  to  sit  down  with  Jonah  an^i 
his  fellow-saints  in  the  kingdom  of  God,  when  the  tumult, 
the  turmoil,  the  battle  din  of  life  is  over  !     Amen. 


1 62  TOPICS  OF  THE  TIMES. 


SERMON  V. 

what's  the  use  of  praying  ? 

"Text: — What  is  the  Almighty,  that  we  should  serve  Him  ?  And  what 
profit  should  we  have,  if  we  pray  unto  Him  ?— Job  xxi.  15. 

* '  What's  the  use  of  praying-  ?  "  is  a  question  often  asked 
by  two  classes  of  persons — professed  skeptics  and  nominal 
Christians.  The  one  class  ask  it  because  they  doubt  the 
existence  of  God  ;  the  other  because  they  think  of  God  as 
a  power  that  works  according  to  unchangeable  law.  It  is, 
therefore,  necessary  to  answer  the  first  question  of  the 
text,  namely,  ''What  is  the  Almighty.?"  before  we  can 
say  "what  profit  we  shall  have  if  we  pray  unto  Him." 

We  Christians  believe,  then,  that  God  is  Spirit — that  He 
is  the  Power  that  works  in  and  controls  all  Nature — that  the 
forces  of  Nature  have  their  root  in  the  Divine  Will.  We 
believe,  further,  that  this  Power  is  Psychical  or  Intelligent 
in  its  nature  ;  and  holding  this  view  of  Deity  we  believe 
that  He  has  infinite  resources  upon  which  He  may  draw 
at  pleasure  to  satisfy  the  wants  of  His  creatures,  and  that 
this  may  be  done  without  disturbing  the  order  He  has 
established.  We  believe  this  because  we  cannot  explain 
even  partially  the  facts  of  creation  on  any  other  supposi- 
tion. We  cannot  imagine  how  the  material  particles,  out 
of  which  the  world  was  formed,  could  have  been  moved 
and  combined  in  the  wonderful  order  and  shapes  they  now 
have,  without  assuming  an  Almighty  Power  endowed  with 
infinite  intelligence.  "The  invisible  things  of  God,"  St. 
Paul  truly  says,  ."since  the  creation  of  the  world,  are 
clearly  seen,  being  perceived  by  the  things  that  are 
made,  even  His  eternal  power  and  Godhead"  (Rom.  i. 
20).  Of  course,  if  science  did  not  show  that  there  had 
been  a  creation,  then  this  argument  would  not  hold  ;  but 
although  some  scientific  men  assume  that  the  atoms  and 


WHAT'S  THE  USE  OF  PRAYINGS  1 63 

their  forces  are  eternal,  yet  none  claim  that  the  universe 
as  it  noiv  exists  is  eternal.  On  the  contrary,  all  believe 
that  it  has  been  developed  out  of  Chaos  ;  but  we  claim 
that  this  wonderful  development  itself  involved  and  neces- 
sitated the  operation  of  an  Infinite  Power  and  Intelligence. 
Even  if  it  be  granted  that  the  atoms  and  their  forces  are 
eternal,  yet  we  must  believe  that  those  forces  were  of  an 
intelligent  or  psychical  nature — otherwise  the  various 
and  manifold  and  orderly  combinations  of  the  atoms  into 
globes  and  finally  in  the  vital  and  mental  orders  of  Being 
cannot  be  explained. 

Now,  the  rationality  of  this  idea  01  God,  and  prayer  to 
such  a  God,  has  been  frankly  admitted  by  Prof.  Huxley. 
"The  supposition,"  he  says,  ''that  there  is  any  inconsist- 
ency between  the  acceptance  of  the  constancy  of  natural 
order  and  a  belief  in  the  efficacy  of  prayer,  is  the  more 
unaccountable  as  it  is  obviously  contradicted  by  analogies 
furnished  by  every-day  experience.  The  belief  in  the 
efficacy  of  prayer  depends  upon  the  assumption  that  there 
is  somebody,  somewhere,  who  is  strong  enough  to  deal 
with  the  earth  and  its  contents  as  men  deal  with  things 
and  events  which  they  are  strong  enough  to  modify  and 
control,   and  who  is  capable  of  being  moved  by  appeals 

such  as  men  make   to    one    another Certainly   I 

don't  lack  faith  in  the  constancy  of  natural  order.  But  I 
am  convinced  that  if  I  were  to  ask  a  friend  of  mine — a 
bishop,  for  instance — to  do  me  a  kindness  which  lay  within 
his  power,  he  would  do  it,  and  I  am  unable  to  see  that  his 
action  or  my  request  involves  any  violation  of  the  order 
of  Nature.  .  .  .  How  is  the  case  altered  if  my  request  is 
preferred  to  the  Most  High  Being,  who,  by  the  supposition, 
is  able  to  arrest  disease,  or  make  the  sun  stand  still  in 
the  heavens,  just  as  easily  as  I  can  stop  my  watch,  or 
make  it  indicate  any  hour  that  pleases  me  ?  "  The  real 
objection,  therefore,  to  Prof.  Huxley's  mind,  to  prayer 
for  material  blessings,  is  not  the  violation  of  natural  order 
that  an  answer  to  such  a  prayer  is  supposed  to  involve,  but 
"the  inadequacy  of  the  (historical)  evidence  to  prove" 
that  any  such  prayers  have  been  answered.  *  Prof.  Tyndall, 
in  his  celebrated  discussion  of  "  Prayer  and  Natural  Law" 
in  his  "Fragments  of  Science,"  takes  the  same  position,  so 

*  "Popular  Science  Monthly"  for  Jan.,  1888,  pp.  355-56. 


1 64  TOPICS  OF  THE  TIMES, 

that  we  are  justified  in  holding  that  physical  science  has 
no  valid  objection  to  urge  against  prayer  for  material  bless- 
ings. It  admits  that  the  philosophy  which  postulates  an 
Infinite  Power  and  Intelligence  as  God,  holding  that  this 
Power  created  and  sustains  and  operates  all  Nature,  may 
be  made  to  harmonize  with  the  facts  of  science  as  truly 
and  easily  as  the  materialistic  or  agnostic  philosophy.* 
Now  the  importance  of  this  admission  cannot  be  over- 
estimated, because  the  moment  that  it  is  shown,  as  Huxley 
shows,  that  prayer  for  material  blessings  may  be  answered 
withoui  violating  natural  laws,  the  most  serious  objection 
to  such  prayer  vanishes.  If  such  prayer  can  be  answered 
according  to  law,  then  we  may  more  easily  believe  in  it. 
And  why  not  believe  in  W.  Why  not  believe  that  prayer 
for  the  recovery  of  a  sick  friend  may  be  answered .?  May 
not  Kingsley's  statement  that  health  is  "  the  order  of 
Nature,"  and  disease  is  a  natural  disorder,  be  profoundly 
true,  so  that  the  cure  of  a  sick  person  would  be  the  restora- 
//o/z  not  the  violation  of  natural  order.?  Just  here  we  are 
reminded  of  Prof.  Tyndall's  famous  "prayer  test."  In  order 
to  test  the  efficacy  of  prayer  he  proposed  that  two  wards 
in  an  hospital  should  be  treated  as  follows  :  One  patient 
should  receive  medical  attention  and  the  other  should 
simply  be  prayed  for,  and  the  result  should  be  accepted  as 
proof  or  disproof  of  the  efficacy  of  prayer.  Of  course,  the 
proposition  raised  a  storm  of  controversy,  and  was  de- 
nounced as  blasphemous.  But  it  is  really  not  blasphe- 
mous, and  only  two  valid  objections  can  be  urged  against 
it,  viz. :  (i)  If  the  subject  of  prayer  had  recovered  it  might 
have  been  said  that  "  he  would  have  got  well  any  way 
without  prayer  ;"  if  the  patient  who  received  medical  atten- 
tion had  died,  it  might  have  been  said  that  bad  nursing  or 
some  other  cause  killed  him  ;  and  so  neither  prayer  nor  medi- 
cine would  really  have  been  tested.  Just  here,  it  seems 
to  me,  lies  the  great  objection  to  such  a  testing  of  the 
efficacy  of  prayer.  When  an  instance  of  such  efficient 
prayers  is  cited  it  may  at  once  be  said  either  that  some 
other  cause  produced  the  result  or  it  would  have  happened 
any  way.  Thus,  if  we  cite  Elijah's  prayer  for  rain  (i  Kings 
xviii.  41-46)  as  an  example  of  the  efficacy  of  prayer  for 
material    blessings,    it   is    immediately    said,    *'The    rain 

*  Huxley,   "Science    and   Culture,"  pp.   268-270    and  in    "Popular 
Science  Monthly,"  for  Feb.,  1887,  p.  503. 


WHA  T'S  THE  USE  'OF  PR  A  YING  ?  165 

would  have  come  any  way  ; "  and  the  proposition  can 
neither  be  denied  nor  proved.  Hence,  all  that  we  can 
hope  to  do  is  to  show  that  prayer  for  material  blessings 
may  be  answered  according  to  law,  and  this  is  sulhcient 
to  afford  a  basis  for  such  prayers.  Take  a  storm  at  sea, 
for  instance.  It  is  said  that  it  is  absurd  to  pray  against 
the  storm,  for  the  forces  \^•llich  have  been  gathered  up 
must  spend  themselves — ^just  as  steam  in  a  boiler  must 
escape  even  if  it  burst  it.  Yes,  but  the  question  is,  cannot 
the  Divine  Will  (which  controls  all  natural  forces)  so 
arrange  it  that  the  forces  pent  up  in  the  storm  may  spend 
themselves  without  injuring  the  passengers  on  board  a  ves- 
sel .?  We  may  quiet  troubled  waters  by  pouring  oil  on  them, 
and  this  does  not  violate  the  laws  of  gaseous  pressure  ;  and 
why  cannot  the  Divine  Will  perform  an  analogous  opera- 
tion by  which  the  storm  may  go  on  its  course  without 
harming  any  one  M'ho  may  be  on  the  ocean  .?  It  is  quite 
rational  to  assert  that  "He  who  ruleth  the  raging  of  the 
sea,"  He  who  has  set  His  decree,  saying,  "  Hitherto 
shalt  thou  come,  but  no  farther,  and  here  shall  thy  proud 
waves  be  staid,"  He  who  upholdeth  all  things  by  the  word 
of  His  power  can  do  this,  and  though  we  may  not  be 
able  to  prove  that  He  has  done  it,  yet  this  is  not  neces- 
sary to  show  the  rationality  of  prayer  for  material  bless- 
ings. 

The  second  objection  to  Prof.  Tyndall's  proposition  to 
test  the  efficacy  of  prayer  as  you  would  a  hypothesis  about 
the  origin  of  life  is  that,  while  it  is  not  blasphemous,  it  cer- 
tainly seems  highly  improper  and  irreverent.  It  is  as  if  a 
child  were  to  say  to  his  father,  "I  don't  believe  you  can 
do  thus  and  so,  but  just  to  see  if  you  can  I  dare  you  to  do 
it  !  "  And  surely  that  would  not  be  considered  a  very 
respectful  attitude  to  take  towards  one's  father,  and  the 
parent  who  had  so  audacious  a  child  would  be  iustified  in 
refusing  his  request  on  the  ground  of  his  audacity.  While 
prayer  does  come  within  the  physical  sphere — is  (by  the 
hypothesis)  an  agent  in  producing  material  results — yet  it 
is  something  more.  It  is  primarily  a  moral  and  spiritual 
act,  and  appeals  to  the  will  and  feelings  of  an  Infinite  Per- 
sonality, and  therefore  moral  and  spiritual  considerations 
should  be  taken  into  account.  The  man  who  prays  be- 
lieves in  a  Being  capable  of  answering  prayer  ;  he  believes 
that  the  Almighty  is  an  Infinite  Intelligence  ;  if  he  does  not 


1 66  TOPICS  OF  THE  TIMES, 

— if  he  believes  that  the  Ahnighty  is  a  bhnd  Fate  or  Force 
that  works  according  to  necessity — because  it  cannot  work 
otherwise,  then  he  is  simply  a  fool  to  pray  to  such  a  God 
— or  rather  no-God.  The  prime  and  fundamental  ques- 
tion, therefore,  is,  ''What  is  the  Almighty?"  And  once 
answer  that  He  is  the  Infinite  and  Eternal  Power  that  oper- 
ates Nature,  that  this  power  is  essentiallyy>T^  and  intelli- 
gent, and  you  have  settled  the  question  about  prayer.  And 
the  proper  way  to  ascertain  the  nature  of  God,  or  the 
Power  that  controls  Nature,  is  not  to  set  up  prayer  tests 
but  to  examine  the  facts  of  Creation,  and  if  they  cannot  be 
explained  by  the  materialistic  or  agnostic  hypothesis — or 
rather  if  they  can  be  better  explained  by  postulating  an 
intelligent  (or  Personal,  Spiritual)  Deity  than  by  either  of 
those  hypotheses,  then  you  may  rationally  pray  to  this 
Deity  for  your  "  daily  bread,"  or  any  other  blessing.  But, 
of  course,  prayer  cannot  and  should  not  take  the  place  of 
action  on  our  part.  On  the  contrary,  the  most  prayerful 
man  will  be  most  active  and  industrious  in  studying  the 
laws  and  utilizing  the  forces  of  Nature.  There  is  plenty  of 
room  for  the  operation  of  the  Divine  Will  over  and  above 
our  own  action.  After  we  have  done  our  utmost  God  may 
have  a  most  important  part  to  perform.  Thus  we  may 
plant  our  corn,  but  between  seed-time  and  harvest  there 
will  be  plenty  of  need  of  the  influences  of  the  Divine  Will 
in  the  development  and  maturing  of  the  gram,  and  it  is 
highly  proper  that  we  should  pray  for  a  production  of 
' '  daily  bread. "  A  physician  may  exhaust  his  skill  in  treat- 
ing a  patient,  and  then  God  may  have  to  heal  him.  And 
so  we  see  that  the  Divine  Will  may  and  must  supplement 
and  complete  the  action  of  the  human  will.  We  must  work 
out  our  own  temporal  and  eternal  salvation,  but  God  works 
ill  and  with  us.     Each  one  has  his  sphere  of  action. 

II.  We  are  now  prepared  to  answer  the  second  question 
of  the  text,  viz.  :    "What  profit  shall  we  have  if  we  pray .?  " 

Many  who  deny  the  profitableness  of  prayer  for  material 
blessings  assert  the  rationality  and  profitableness  of  prayer 
for  spiritual  blessings.  But  they  forget  that  Law  reigns  in 
the  spiritual  as  well  as  in  the  physical  world  ;  and  hence, 
if  it  be  irrational  to  pray  for  material  blessings,  it  is  equally 
so  to  pray  for  spiritual  blessings.  Indeed,  I  am  not  sure 
that  there  are  not  more  difficulties  attaching  to  prayer  for 
spiritual    benefits    than    there  are  to    prayer    for    material 


WHA  T  'S  THE  USE  OF  PR  A  YING  ?  167 

things.  God  knoweth  that  we  have  need  of  spiritual  as 
well  as  physical  things,  and  it  is  therefore  reasonably 
asked,  Will  He  not  give  them  to  us  without  our  asking  for 
them  ?  Does  it  not  seem  presumptuous  dictation  on  our 
part  to  ask  Him  for  anything?  Is  it  not  a  reflection  upon 
His  love  and  knowledge,  as  though  He  did  not  know  or 
would  not  give  what  we  need  ?  We  answer  by  asking  : 
Is  it  presumptuous  dictation  for  a  child  to  ask  his  father  for 
a  present?  Is  it  a  reflection  upon  His  love  or  knowledge? 
On  the  contrary,  is  it  not  the  proper  attitude  of  the  child 
towards  that  Being  who  gave  him  life  and  all  things  ?  Is 
it  not  simply  an  acknowledgment  of  the  filial  relation,  of 
the  child's  dependence  upon  his  father?  Yes,  and  the 
proper  attitude  of  the  creature  towards  the  Creator — the 
Being  in  whom  he  lives  and  moves  and  from  whom  he 
derives  all  things — is  the  prayerful  attitude.  By  asking 
God  for  material  and  spiritual  blessings  we  admit  our 
dependence  upon  Him,  and  surely  such  an  admission  is 
not  only  proper  but  profitable.  Prayer  is  the  highest  act  of 
worship,  and  as  such  it  is  meet  that  we  should  render  it 
unto  the  Creator.  Of  course,  in  praying  for  material  things, 
we  must  include  the  condition,  "  if  it  be  Thy  will" — and 
this  not  because  we  doubt  God's  power  or  goodness,  but 
because  we  are  ignorant  as  to  the  possible  effects  which 
the  granting  of  our  request  may  have  upon  the  other  mem- 
bers of  the  human  family.  Manifestly,  no  true  brother 
would  desire  his  father  to  give  him  a  blessing,  the  giving 
of  which  would  injure  another  member  of  the  household, 
and  yet  through  ignorance  he  might  ask  for  it.  So  we 
may  pray  for  things  the  granting  of  which  would  injure 
others — or  even  ourselves.  A  parent  rightly  refuses  to  give 
a  sharp  knife  to  a  young  child  lest  he  cut  his  finger  ;  and 
so  God  may  withhold  things  for  which  we  pray  because 
they  would  either  injure  ourselves  or  others.  Hence,  when 
we  pray  it  must  be  as  the  great  Petitioner  did,  ''Never- 
theless, not  as  I  will,  but  as  Thou  wilt,"  and  "keep  on 
praying. 

But  the  begging  prayer  of  which  I  have  just  been  speak- 
ing is  the  lowest  form  of  prayer,  and  perhaps  the  least 
profitable.  The  prayer  of  thanksgiving  is  more  important 
than  the  petition.  Surely  no  earnest-minded  man  will 
object  to  giving  thanks  for  the  blessings  of  life.  Even  Col. 
Ingersoll  tells  us  that  thankfulness  is   right  and  beautiful. 


1 68  TOPICS  OF  THE  TIMES. 

I  know,  of  course,  that  we  often  feel  that  life  is  not  worth 
Hving ;  that  we  have  nothing  to  be  thankful  for  ;  that  it 
would  have  been  better  if  we  had  not  been  born.  But 
these  feelings  are  exceptional,  and  are  due  to  peculiar  cir- 
cumstances. Few  of  us  will  really  agree  with  Byron  when 
he  says  : 

"  Count  o'er  the  joys  thine  hours  have  known, 
Count  o'er  thy  days  from  anguish  free  ; 
And  know,  whatever  thou  hast  been, 
'Tis  something  better  not  to  be." 

If  we  were  to  cast  up  fully  and  carefully  the  balance- 
sheet  of  pleasures  and  pains,  most  of  us  would  find  that, 
despite  the  days  of  anguish  through  which  we  have  passed, 
our  lives  have  had  much,  very  much  in  them  to  be  thank- 
ful for.  We  have  had,  at  least,  a  few  true,  loving,  devoted 
friends,  who  have  stood  by  us  when  others  deserted  us. 
We  have  had,  at  least,  the  necessaries  of  life  supplied.  We 
may  have  enjoyed  good  health  (the  greatest  of  blessings) 
the  greater  part  of  our  lives.  We  may  have  had  the  ad- 
vantages of  some  education,  the  pleasures  of  books,  of 
travel  and  of  congenial  society,  and  we  may  have  got  even 
a  considerable  amount  of  worldly  goods  and  have  attained 
to  a  position  of  influence  in  our  respective  communities  ; 
and  it  were  sinful  ingratitude  in  us  not  to  be  thankful  for 
all  these  things. 

I  know,  of  course,  that  there  are  many  thousands  in  the 
slums  of  our  great  cities  to  whom  life  is  a  heavy  burden, 
and  it  must  be  admitted  that  these  persons  have  nothing 
to  be  thankful  for  ;  non-existence  would  be  a  blessiiig  tc 
them.  But  these  are  decidedly  in  the  mii^iority,  and  thank 
God  there  is  a  spirit  abroad  in  our  land  which  is  earnestly 
seeking  the  betterment  of  the  conditions  of  these  people  ; 
and  for  this  they  and  we  may  be  thankful.  Let  us,  then, 
not  brood  over  our  miseries  or  the  trials  and  troubles  of 
others,  but  look  for  the  silvery  lining  behind  the  cloud,  and 
we  shall,  at  least,  in  most  cases,  find  it. 

Finally,  there  is  the  prayer  of  simple  adoration,  and  this 
I  consider  the  highest  form  of  prayer.  We  make  a 
great  mistake  by  supposing  that  the  chief  end  of  prayer 
is  the  attainment  of  certain  material  things.  "All 
prayer,"  says  Robertson,  **is  to  change  the  will  human 
into  submission  to  the  will  Divine."     jNIany  men  say  that 


WHAT'S  THE  USE  OF  PRAYING?  1 69 

prayer  affects  the  pray-er  more  than  it  does  God,  and  so 
they  conclude  that  prayer  is  useless  ;  whereas  the  proper 
conclusion  would  be  that  this  very  fact  makes  prayer  all 
the  more  necessary.  What  effect  does  prayer,  real  prayer, 
have  upon  the  pray-er  ?     What  profit  is  it  to  him  ? 

First,  it  develops  in  him  a  humble  spirit.  It  makes  him 
realize  his  dependence  upon  a  Higher  Power.  Some  one 
has  facetiously  said:  "What  a  blessed  thing  it  is  that 
Providence  has  implanted  in  each  one  of  us  the  feeling, 
'  /  am  the  centre  of  the  universe  '  !  "  But  this  feeling  pro- 
duces many  evils.  Self-esteem  is  all  right,  but  self-con- 
ceit is  abominable  ;  and  it  is  often  hard  to  draw  the  line 
between  the  two.  We  cannot,  therefore,  be  too  earnestly 
on  our  guard  against  a  self-confidence  and  self-reliance  that 
puts  even  God  Himself  on  one  side.  This  is  practically 
what  men  do  who  refuse  to  recognize  Him  in  all  their  ways 
and  doings.  They  depend  on  self;  they  make  self  their 
God ;  and  no  earnest-minded  man  can  approve  such  a 
course.  Who  does  not  admire  the  meek  and  humble  man, 
and  believe  that  he  should  rule  the  earth .?  Who  can  read 
the  story  of  ]\Ioses  pleading  with  the  Lord  that  He  should 
send  some  one  more  worthy  than  himself  to  deliver  the 
Israelites  from  Egyptian  bondage,  and  not  feel  the  great- 
ness of  the  man .?  Who  is  not  drawn  to  Him  who  came 
not  to  be  ministered  unto  but  to  minister  to  the  lowest  and 
the  poorest.^ 

How  eager  is  every  biographer  to  record  the  fact  that 
the  man  whose  life  he  is  writing  was  an  humble-minded, 
unassuming  man.  This  is  what  made  Sir  Isaac  Newton 
and  Charles  Darwin  so  attractive  and  powerful.  And 
while  neither  of  these  men  perhaps  prayed  in  the  conven- 
tional manner,  yet  both  possessed  the  prayerful  spirit — the 
humble  spirit  which  said,  ''Speak,  Lord,  for  thy  servant 
heareth."  Each  cherished  the  receptive  spirit;  felt  his 
littleness  and  the  magnitude  of  the  Creator  and  Creation. 
It  may  be,  too,  that  this  humility  was  due  to  early  reli- 
gious training.  At  any  rate  prayer  is  a  great  producer  of 
humility.  The  very  posture  of  prayer — the  bending  of 
the  knee  or  the  bowing  of  the  head  is  conducive  to  humble- 
ness. This  is  the  significance  of  all  the  prostrations  before 
kings  and  nobles,  and  this  is  why  the  proud  man  refuses 
to  pray. 

Again,  prayer   teaches  revere?ice.     The  man  who  never 


1 70  TOPICS  OF  THE  TIMES. 

prays  is  almost  sure  to  be  an  irreverent  man.  There  may 
be  exceptions  to  this  statement — Mr.  Darwin  probably  was 
one,  but  as  a  rule  it  is  perfectly  true.  Reverence  is  just  as 
necessary  to  the  discovery  of  truth  as  humility  is,  audit 
is  commended  in  all  who  possess  it.  The  scoffer  will 
scarcely  find  the  truth.  He  considers  life  a  farce  or  a  joke. 
He  seeks  to  gratify  self  and  his  sensual  desires.  He  does 
not  pierce  beneath  the  surface  ot  things  to  the  unseen,  the 
spiritual  and  the  eternal.  But  the  man  of  prayer  does. 
The  very  fact  that  he  prays  shows  that  he  believes  in  an 
Unknown  Power  who  holds  his  destiny  in  His  hands.  He 
therefore  watches  the  motions  of  this  Power  throughout 
Nature  with  awe  and  reverence.  When  he  stands  beside 
the  casket  or  the  tomb  he  recognizes  that  here  is  one  of 
the  most  mysterious  manifestations  of  the  Unknown  Power. 
It  is  impossible  for  such  a  man  to  be  a  scoffer.  The  prayer- 
ful spirit  and  posture  are  exclusive  of  this  proud  and  scoff- 
ing spirit. 

But  the  chief  benefit  of  prayer  is  that  it  helps  us  to  over- 
come our  sins.  I  do  not  mean  that  prayer  has  a  magical 
effect  upon  us — that  it  calls  down  some  mysterious  spirit 
or  influence  from  the  skies,  who  works  in  us  both  to  will 
and  to  do  of  His  good  pleasure.  It  may  do  this  ;  we  know 
not  the  power  of  matter,  much  less  the  power  of  spirit, 
and  so  we  may  not  deny  this  idea  of  prayer  any  more 
than  we  may  deny  that  God  may  give  us  material  bless- 
ings for  the  asking.  Whether  ''prayer  may  move  the  arm 
that  moves  the  world  "  or  not,  it  is  quite  conceivable  and  not 
at  all  irrational  that  God  may  co7iditio7i  the  bestowment  of 
material  and  spiritual  blessings  upon  the  asking  for  them, 
and  this  without  disturbing  the  physical  or  the  spiritual 
order,  and  hence  we  may  believe  that  the  gift  of  strength 
to  overcome  sin — the  influx  of  the  Divine  Power  into  the 
human  soul — may  depend  upon  the  williiigjiess  and  desire  of 
the  soul  to  receive  it ;  indeed,  granting  that  the  soul  is  es- 
sentially :\.free  power,  it  must  consent  to  and  desire  the 
influence  of  the  Divine  Spirit,  else  its  freedom  would  be  de- 
stroyed. But  while,  I  have  no  objection  to  this  view  of 
prayer,  yet  I  am  now  speaking  of  a  simpler  operation  of 
prayer,  viz.,  W?, purifying  effect  upon  the  soul.  Christ  rightly 
said,  the  man  who  looketh  upon  a  woman  to  lust  after  her 
hath  committed  adultery  already  with  her  in  his  heart,  and 
He  urged  that  we  should  cleanse  that  which  is  ivithin  the 


JVHA  T'S  THE  USE  OF  PR  A  YING  ?  1 7 1 

cup  and  platter,  and  the  outside  would  cleanse  itself.  In 
other  words,  pure  thoughts  must  breed  pure  actions,  as  evil 
thoughts  must  breed  evil  actions. 

The  covetous  man  suffers  the  thought  of  money  to  take 
such  possession  of  his  soul  that  he  finally  cannot  refrain 
from  stealing.  The  licentious  man  dwells  on  the  pleasures 
of  sensual  indulgence  until  he  betrays  the  innocent,  truth- 
ful girl  by  his  side.  But  prayer  prevents  all  this.  I 
mean  real  prayer  does — not  the  prayer  of  the  hypocrite 
and  Pharisee.  The  man  who  yearns  for  purity  and  wres- 
tles by  his  bedside  for  power  to  overcome  temptation  will 
never  rob  a  bank  or  debauch  a  fellow-creature.  Just  as  the 
confession  of  our  sins  to  our  fellow-men  often  helps  us  to 
live  more  worthy  lives,  so  their  confession  to  the  great  God 
helps.  Just  as  the  thought  that  the  eye  of  man  is  upon  us 
— that  public  opinion  would  condemn  our  action — prevents 
us  from  doing  things  we  would  otherwise  do,  so,  in  a 
higher  degree,  the  thought  (expressed  in  prayer)  that  the 
Creator's  eye  is  upon  us  and  that  the  Almighty  disapproves 
of  certain  acts,  prevents  us  from  committing  them.  None 
but  the  atheist  is  excusable  for  not  praying,  for  prayer  is 
the  great  purifier  of  the  soul. 

We  thus  see  that  the  profit  of  pra3^er  is  very  great.  It 
develops  and  strengthens  our  moral  and  spiritual  natures. 
It  first  of  all  expresses  our  belief  in  a  Personal  (or  Spiritual) 
God,  who  resides  in  and  presides  over  nature,  and  not  only 
gives  us  our  daily  bread  by  His  ordinary  providence,  but 
may  also  give  us  special  material  blessings.  It  cultivates 
a  spirit  of  thankfulness,  a  spirit  of  humility,  a  spirit  of 
reverence  and  a  spirit  of  purity,  and  surely  no  one  will 
deny  that  these  are  great  benefits  to  human  nature — to  in- 
dividuals and  to  society;  without  them  earth  would  be  hell. 
Man  has  a  moral  and  spiritual  nature,  as  well  as  an  intel- 
lect;  and  while  I  agree  with  the  most  earnest  and  enthusi- 
astic advocate  of  intellectual  development  both  in  the  in- 
dividual and  society,  yet  I  urge  just  as  earnestly  that  the 
man  who  develops  ojily  his  in'tellectual  nature  is  only  half 
a  man.  Many  of  the  mightiest*  and  wisest  men  of  earth 
have  been  the  most  prayerful.  Think  of  Jacob  wrestling 
all  night  with  the  Unknown  One  and  refusing  to  let  Him 
go  until  He  blessed  him  !  Think  of  Moses,  the  Solon  of 
Israel,  pleading  with  Jehovah  in  the  solitudes  of  Sinai  ! 
Think  of  David,  the  great  poet-king  crying,   ' '  Against  Thee 


172 


TOPICS  OF  THE  TIMES. 


only  have  I  sinned,  and  done  this  evil  in  thy  sight !  " 
Think  of  Solomon,  the  wisest  of  monarchs,  begging  for 
wisdom  from  the  Divine  Word  and  offering  up  that  im- 
mortal prayer  at  the  dedication  of  his  magnificent  Temple 
(i  Kings  viii.)  Think  of  the  glorious  company  of  the 
Apostles,  the  goodly  fellowship  of  the  prophets,  the  noble 
army  of  martyrs  whose  burning  words  of  prayer  come  float- 
ing across  the  ages  as  incense  from  the  altars  of  holy 
hearts  !  Above  all,  think  of  Him  who  gave  us  the  "  Lord's 
Prayer,'*  and  who  during  His  whole  life  was  wont  to  retire 
regularly  to  mountain  or  desert  to  commune  with  the 
Father  !  Think  of  Him  in  the  awful  shades  of  Gethsem- 
ane,  and  listen  to  His  heartrending  cry  upon  the  Cross, 
Father,  forgive  them,  for  they  know  not  what  they  do  !  and 
tell  me  whether  you  can  believe  that  the  only  answer  re- 
ceived was  a  hollow  echo  through  the  vast  void  of  nothing- 
ness? No  !  No  !  Let  him  who  can  believe  this  do  so  ; 
but  as  foi  me,  I  believe  that  the  instinct  of  prayer  in  man 
came  from  God  and  is  satisfied  by  God,  and  the  treasures 
of  this  world — the  great  discoveries  of  the  intellect — are 
as  baubles  compared  with  the  spiritual  blessings  prayer 
obtains.  Give  me  wealth,  but  let  it  be  sanctified  wealth. 
Give  me  intellect,  but  let  it  be  sanctified  intellect  !  Give 
me  the  intellectual  and  the  material,  but  above  all  give  me 
the  spiritual,  for  in  death  the  material  must  vanish  away, 
but  the  spiritual  must  abide  forever  and  ever  ! 


EVIDENCE  OE  LIFE  AFTER  DEATH.  173 


SERMON  VI. 

WHAT  IS  THE  EVIDENCE  OF  LIFE  AFTER  DEATH  ? 
Text  :— It  a  man  die,  shall  he  live  again  ?  —Job  xiv.  14. 

This  question  of  the  old  patriarch  comes  echoing;  across 
the  centuries  with  all  the  solemn  importance  that  it  had 
when  first  asked.  Indeed,  in  our  day,  the  belief  in  immor- 
tality has  perhaps  been  more  widely  questioned  and 
doubted  than  ever  before,  and  Job's  question  is  therefore 
more  pertinent  and  important  than  ever.  It  is  a  question, 
too,  that  should  strike  silence  to  the  soul  of  even  the  most 
frivolous  and  thoug-htless.  "  Man  that  is  born  of  a  woman 
hath  but  a  short  time  to  live  and  is  full  of  misery.  He 
Cometh  up,  and  is  cut  down,  like  a  flower  :  he  fleeth  as  it 
were  a  shadow,  and  continueth  not.  Man  dieth  and  wast- 
eth  away  :  yea,  man  giveth  up  the  ghost  and  where  is 
he.?  "  It  is  not  a  mark  of  intellect  or  of  character  to  speak 
lightly  of  death.  It  is  meet  that  we  should  enter  the  cham- 
ber of  death  with  muffled  tread  and  silent  tongue  and 
solemn  mien,  for  we  stand  before  the  most  awful  and 
mysterious  fact  of  existence.  "Talk  as  we  will,"  says 
Frederick  Robertson,  "of  immortality,  there  is  an  obsti- 
nate feeling  that  we  cannot  master,  that  we  end  in  death. 
When  we  die  we  are  surrendering  all  that  with  which  we 
have  associated  existence.  All  that  we  know  of  life  is 
connected  with  a  shape,  a  form,  a  body  of  materialism  ; 
and  now  that  that  is  palpably  melting  away  into  nothing- 
ness, the  coldest  heart  may  be  excused  a  shudder,  when 
there  is  forced  upon  it,  in  spite  of  itself,  the  idea  of  ceasing 
forever  to  be." 

Another  fact  even  more  terrible  than  this,  is  that  death  is 
not  confined  to  human  beings,  but  sweeps  through  the 
whole  lower  creation  :  and  while  some  profound  thinkers 
have  believed  in  the  future  existence  of  at  least  the  noblest 


74 


TOPICS  OF  THE  TIMES. 


of  the  lower  animals,  yet  the  vast  majority  hold  that  man 
alone  will  be  immortal.  But  why  should  he  prove  an  ex- 
ception to  the  great  law  of  death  ?  The  grandeur  of  man, 
it  is  said,  excludes  him  from  the  fate  of  other  animals. 
He  is  "the  lord  of  creation  ;  "  myriads  of  ages  and  infinite 
power  and  wisdom  have  been  spent  in  his  production,  and 
it  is  irrational  to  believe  that  all  this  will  be  wasted — that 
God  (or  Nature,  if  you  please)  should  build  so  noble  a 
structure,  as  a  child  builds  a  playhouse,  just  for  the  purpose 
of  knocking  it  down.  There  is  much  truth  in  this  conten- 
tion, yet  this  fact  alone  would  not  convince  us  of  man's 
immortality,  for  consider  the  grandeur  of  the  lower 
animals  !  Millions  of  ages  and  infinite  power  and  wisdom 
have  been  spent  in  the  production  of  the  horse  or  the  dog, 
yet  they  die  and  return  to  the  dust  from  which  they  were 
originally  taken.  Or  take  even  the  insects.  "Go,"  says 
Robertson,  "  and  stand  some  summer  evening  by  the  river- 
side ;  you  will  see  the  May-fly  sporting  out  its  little  hour, 
in  dense  masses  of  insect  life,  darkening  the  air  a  few  feet 
above  the  gentle  swell  of  the  water.  The  heat  of  that  very 
afternoon  brought  them  into  existence.  Every  gauze  wing 
is  traversed  by  ten  thousand  fibres  which  defy  the  micro- 
scope to  find  a  flaw  in  their  perfection.  The  omniscience 
and  the  care  bestowed  upon  that  exquisite  anatomy,  one 
would  think,  cannot  be  destined  to  be  wasted  in  a  moment. 

Yet  so  it  is  :  when  the  sun  has  sunk  below  the  trees  its 
little  life  is  done.  Yesterday  it  was  not ;  to-morrow  it 
will  not  be.  God  has  bidden  it  be  happy  for  one  evening. 
It  has  no  right  or  claim  to  a  second,  and  in  the  universe 
that  marvelous  life  has  appeared  once  and  will  appear  no 
more.  May  not  the  race  of  man  sink  like  the  generation 
of  the  May-fly.?  Why  cannot  the  Creator,  so  lavish  in 
His  resources,  afford  to  annihilate  souls  as  He  annihilates 
insects  !  "  This  is  a  very  awful  and  startling  question,  for 
man,  after  all,  is  a  mere  atom  of  an  atom  in  this  great 
universe.  Still,  there  are  facts  which  at  least  cannot  be 
lightly  set  aside,  and  which,  to  many  minds,  many  of  the 
profoundest  minds,  minds  that  are  absolutely  free  from 
theological  bias,  seem  sufiticient  to  justify  the  belief  that 
man  shall  live  after  death. 

First  of  all,  science  has  established  no  fact  more  clearly 
than  it  has  the  radical  distinction  between  the  soul  and  the 
body.     One  witness  out  of  many  to  this  fact  is  all  we  need 


E  VIDENCE  OF  LIFE  AFTER  BE  A  TH. 


75 


cite,  Prof.  John  Tyndall.  In  his  well-known  and  oft-quoted 
address  or  article  on  "Scientific  Materialism  "  he  says  : 
''Granted  that  a  definite  thought,  and  a  definite  molecular 
action  in  the  brain,  occur  simultaneously,  we  do  not  pos- 
sess the  intellectual  organ,  nor  apparently  any  rudiment 
of  the  organ,  which  would  enable  us  to  pass  by  a  process 
of  reasoning  from  the  one  to  the  other.  They  appea?-  together^ 
hut  we  do  not  know  why.  Were  our  minds  and  senses  so 
expanded,  strengthened  and  illuminated  as  to  enable  us 
to  see  and  feel  the  very  molecules  of  the  brain  ;  were  we 
capable  of  following  all  their  motions,  all  their  groupings, 
all  their  electric  discharges,  if  such  there  be  ;  and  were  we 
intimately  acquainted  with  the  corresponding  states  of 
thought  and  feeling,  we  should  be  as  far  as  ever  from  the 
solution  of  the  problem,  '  How  are  these  physical  processes 
connected  with  the  facts  of  consciousness  .?'  The  chasm 
between  the  two  classes  of  phenomena  would  still  remain 
intellectually  impassable.  Let  the  consciousness  of  love, 
for  example,  be  associated  with  a  right-handed  spiral  motion 
of  the  molecules  of  the  brain,  and  the  consciousness  of  hate 
with  a  left-handed  spiral  motion.  We  should  then  know 
when  we  love  that  the  motion  is  in  one  direction,  and 
when  we  hate  that  the  motion  was  in  the  other  ;  but  Why.? 
would  remain  as  unanswerable  as  before." 

In  his  Belfast  address,  he  says  :  "We  can  trace  the  de- 
velopment of  a  nervous  system,  and  correlate  with  it  the 
parallel  phenomena  of  sensation  and  thought.  We  see 
with  undoubted  certainty  that  they  go  hand  in  hand.  But 
we  try  to  soar  in  a  vacuum  the  moment  we  seek  to  com- 
prehend the  connection  between  the  two."*  The  authority 
and  truth  of  these  words  will  not  be  questioned  by  any 
eminent  scientist,  and  so  we  see  that  the  idea  of  a  few 
rather  superficial  thinkers  that  the  brain  produces  thought, 
is  the  cause  of  thought — that  the  mind  is  a  product  or  an 
appendage  of  the  body,  is  false.  The  brain  does  not  secrete 
thought  as  the  liver  secretes  bile,  as  it  used  to  be  main- 
tained, nor  is  thought  a  product  of  molecular  motion,  as 
sound  is.  You  might  make  all  the  particles  in  the  universe 
clash  together,  but  they  would  not  produce  a  thought ; 
they  would  make  a  fearful  clatter,  but  out  of  that  crash  of 
matter  no  Hamlet  or  Macbeth  would  arise  in  all  his  majesty 
and  beauty.  Ideas  are  not  material  things  and  cannot  be 
*  "  Fragments  of  Science,"  pp.  420,  528. 


I  76  TOPICS  OF  THE   TIMES. 

created  by  a  material  process;  they  cannot  be  manufactured. 
The  brain  is,  at  most,  simply  the  organ   of  the  mind,  and 
this  organ  would  give  forth  no  music  without  the  soul. 
But  this  radical  distinction  between  mind  and  body  is  very 
important  and  significant,  for  association  is  not  the  same  as 
dependence,  and  two  things  that  are  temporarily  associated 
together  may  finally  be  separated  and  lead  an  independent 
extstence.     The  piano  and  pianist  are   frequently  associ- 
ated together,  but  are  easily  separated,  and  the  pianist  may 
get  another  instrument  to  play  upon.     So  when  it  is  shown 
that,  although  the   soul   and  body  are  now  associated  to- 
gether in  the  most  intimate  manner,  yet  they  are  \\o\.iden- 
tical  and  inseparable,  one  of  the  greatest  objections  to  the 
soul's  survival  after  the  death  of  the  body  is  removed,  for 
it  is   precisely  because  all  we  know  of  life  is  connected 
with  a  material  body— it  is  because  we  feel  that  we  are  so 
inextricably  mixed  up  with  our  bodies  that  when  they  are 
dissolved  we  must  go  with  them — that  we  dread  death  as 
the  end  of  all.     That  dread  is  seen  to  be  groundless.   It 
is  only  fair  to  Tyndall,  Spencer,  Huxley,  and  their  school, 
to  say  that,  while  they  admit  that  the  soul   and  body  are 
not  identical — are,  indeed,  radically  distinct — they  never- 
theless hold  that  \\\Q  post-mortem  survival  of  the  soul  can- 
not be  proved.     Their  idea  seems  to  be  this:     The  body 
consists  of  a  series  of  states  ;  it  changes  its  nature,  or  con- 
stitution,  every  seven  years  or  thereabouts,    and  so  the 
bodies  we  now  have  are  not  those  we  had  in   childhood. 
The  soul,  likewise,  is  a  series  oi  thoughts  and  feelings  ;  it 
changes  with  the  body  ;  the  thoughts  of  the  child  are  not 
the  thoughts  of  the   man.     We  have,  therefore,  according 
to  these  philosophers,  two  series  of  phenomena,  intimately 
associated  together  yet  radically  different,  and  we  believe 
that  one  of  the  series  will  by  and  by  cease  to   exist ;  why 
not   believe    that  both  will.?     Why  should  one   continue 
after   the    other    ends.?     These    profound    thinkers    doubt 
whether  one  will  continue  when   the  other  ceases.      But 
Prof.    Huxley  frankly  admits  that  one   of   the  series  f?idy 
continue  without  the  other.      "Leaving  aside  the  problem 
of  the  substance  of  the  soul,"  he  says:  "and  taking  the 
word  '  soul '  simply  as  a  name  for  the  series  of  mental  phe- 
nomena (thoughts,  etc.)  which  make  up  an  individual  mind  : 
it  remains  open  to  us  to  ask  whether  that  series  commenced 
ivith,  or  before,  the  series  of  phenomena  which  constitute 


EVIDENCE  OF  LIFE  AFTER  DEATH. 


11 


the  corresponding  individual  body  ;  and  whether  it  ter- 
minates with  the  end  of  the  bodily  series,  or  goes  on  after 
the  existence  of  the  body  has  ended."*  It  is  thus  seen  and 
admitted  that  even  if  the  soul  be  only  a  series  of  thoughts 
and  feelings,  not  a  distinct  substance  or  thing,  its  immor- 
tality is  still  possible.  But  this  doctrine  of  the  soul  is  re- 
jected by  the  profoundest  metaphysicians,  who  claim  that 
the  soul  is  a  thing,  not  a  series  of  somethings.  It  is  true 
that  my  thoughts  as  a  man  are  not  the  same  as  the  thoughts 
I  had  as  a  boy,  but  /  am  the  same  ;  memory  and  conscious- 
ness declare  it.  If  my  soul  is  not  the  same  soul  that  said 
and  did  so  many  naughty  things  twenty  years  ago,  why 
do  I  remember  them  with  remorse.?  How  could  1  remem- 
ber them  at  all.?  How  could  the  new  pieces  of  soul-stuff 
have  got  and  retained  the  i?npressions  of  the  old  soul  whose 
place  they  had  taken  P  No  !  The  soul  is  7iot  a  mere  series 
of  thoughts  xmd  feelings.  There  must  be  some  tlmig  to 
think  and  feel  before  there  could  be  thoughts  and  feelings. 
As  well  talk  about  sensation  and  motion  without  a  body  to 
move  as  talk  about  thoughts  without  something  to  think. 
Moreover,  I  know  I  am  the  same  person  that  I  was  twenty 
years  ago,  albeit  a  more  highly  developed  person,  and  this 
simple  fact  of  consciousness  smashes  to  atoms  all  analogies 
between  bodily  changes  and  mental  states.  Hence  we 
conclude  that  neither  materialism  nor  agnosticism  can  dis- 
prove either  the  existence  or  immortality  of  the  soul. 

The  second  important  fact  which  points  to  the  immor- 
tality of  the  soul  is  its  derivation  from  a  power  or  energy 
which  is  itself  eternal.  Mr.  Spencer  tells  us  that  "  the 
Power  manifested  throughout  the  universe  distinguished  as 
material,  is  the  same  Power  which  in  ourselves  wells  up 
under  the  form  of  consciousness,  "f  He  means  that  the 
energy  which  operates  nature  is  two  sided  ;  in  one  form  it 
appears  as  matter,  in  another  as  mind.  He  does  not 
mean  that  the  soul  is  material,  or  a  product  of  matter,  for 
he  tells  us  that  it  would  be  more  reasonable  to  translate 
physical  phenomena  into  mental  phenomena,  to  call  matter 
spirit  or  a  mode  of  spirit,  than  it  would  be  to  convert  mind 
into  matter.  J  Since,  then,  Spencer  no  less  flian  Tyndall 
admits  the  radical  distinction  between  the  soul  and   body 

*  Huxley's  "  Life  of  Hume,"  Chapter  IX,  on  "The  Soul  and  Immor- 
tality." 

t"  Ecclesiastical  Institutions,"  p.  839. 

\  "  Principles  of  Psychology,"  I.,  pp.  162  and  159. 

12 


^yg  TOPICS  OF  THE  TIMES. 

and  since  he  further  tells  us  that  the  soul  is  an  efflu- 
ence from  the  Eternal  Energy  which  created  and  sustains 
all  nature — since  it  is  a  spark  flashed  forth  from  the  Divine 
Light,  we  believe  that  the  soul  partakes  of  the  nature  of 
its"  source,  and  may  therefore  exist  with  it  forever.  In 
other  words,  Mr.  Spencer  really  agrees  with  the  writer  of 
Genesis  i.  that  man  is  created  in  the  image  of  God ;  his 
soul  is  a  miniature  of  the  great  Soul  of  the  universe,  and 
hence  is  capable  of  continued,  everlasting  existence. 

But  it  would  be  urged  just  here,  Mr.  Spencer  claims  that 
all  things  proceed  from  this  one  Power,  the  lower  animals, 
as  welfas  man,  and  hence  if  such  a  derivation  of  the  human 
soul  proves  its  immortality,  we  must  conclude  that  the 
lower  animals,  that  come  from  the  same  source,  are  like- 
wise immortal.  This  is  one  of  the  greatest  difticulties  in 
the  doctrine  of  man's  immortality,  but  I  think  the  theory  ot 
evolution  itself  removes  it. 

According  to  this  doctrine,  there  has  been  going  on  from 
the  beginning  of  the  present  order  of  things  a  twofold 
development— viz.,  a  development  of  material /^rms  and 
a  development  of  immaterial yb;x6's. 

The  physical  evolution  resulted  in  the  human  body,  the 
highest  material  form  possible,  and  force  evolution  pro- 
duced the  human  soul.  By  reason  of  this  onward  and  up- 
ward movement  of  forces  they  would  finally  become 
so  concentrated  and  highly  developed  as  to  form  a  power 
capable  of  individual  and  continued  existence.  The  soul  of 
man,  therefore,  may  be  believed  to  have  been  individualized, 
that  the  return  of  the  lower  forces  to  the  fund  from  which 
they  were  taken  does  not  involve  its  destruction. 

The  Creator  has  erected  the  Temple  of  Humanity  by 
means  of  the  scaffolding  of  the  lower  creation,  but  the  remo- 
val of  this  scaffolding  will  not  destroy  the  temple.  While, 
therefore,  the  lower  forces,  gravity,  chemical  affinity,  and 
even  life  and  the  anima  (or  mind)  o""  the  lower  animals 
may  be  correlated  and  convertible  one  into  the  other,  yet 
the  high  development  of  the  human  spirit  may  be  believed 
to  exclude  it  from  their  final  fate. 

The  superiority  of  man  to  the  lower  creatures  is  aamitted 
by  all,  and  urgently  insisted  upon  by  the  evolutionists. 

Man  can  solve  the  great  problems  of  mathematics  ;  he 
can  reason  about  the  grand  questions  of  Duty  ;  he  can 
turn  his  eye  inward  and" reflect  upon  that  mysterious  some- 


EVIDENCE  OF  LIFE  AFTER  DEATH.  179 

thing  called  Self ;  he  can  study  its  actions  and  laws;  he 
can  glance  backward  through  the  misty  ages  and  picture 
to  his  ninid's  eye  that  mighty  chaos  that  rolled  through  the 
infinite  darkness  "  in  the  Beginning";  he  can  trace  the 
gradual  development  of  this  magnificent  universe  out  of 
that  chaotic  clash  of  atoms  ;  he  can  rise  superior  to  all  this, 
and  think  of  the  Supreme  Being  who  gave  birth  to  this 
wonderful  order,  and  before  that  Being  he  bows  his  head 
and  bends  his  knee  in  profoundest  humility  and  awe  ! 
This  cannot  the  lower  creatures  do.  We  cheerfully  admit 
their  wonderful  powers  of  mind  and  body  ;  we  do  not  deny 
that  we  are  closely  related  to  them  ;  we  gladly  recognize 
all  the  merits  of  brute  creation  ;  yet  we  must  still  consider 
it  brutal  and  far  inferior  to  man.  The  glimmerings  of 
mind  in  our  humble  kindred  were  but  the  streaks  which 
preceded  the  rising  of  the  sun  of  humanity,  and  as  he 
ascends  towards  the  zenith  of  eternity  they  disappear  in 
their  primeval  darkness. 

A  third  fact  which  points  to  a  life  after  death  \^  the  failure 
involved  in  creation  on  any  other  supposition.  It  may  be 
hard  to  believe  in  the  soul's  immortality  ;  difficulties  sur- 
round this  belief;  but  the  belief  that  death  ends  all  is  more 
incredible.  If  this  be  so,  then,  indeed,  the  great  develop- 
ment stretching  back  through  the  ages  to  the  time  when 
the  morning  stars  of  creation  sang  together,  has  been  a 
movement  without  a  meaning  or  a  goal.  God  (or  Nature, 
if  you  please)  has  been  guilty  of  the  folly  of  constructing 
a  magnificent  organism  just  for  the  purpose  of  destroying 
it.  But  if  death  does  ;z<?/end  all  ;  if  the  outward  and  mate- 
rial be  simply  a  sign  of  the  inward  and  spiritual — if  thp 
grand  process  of  development  is  to  continue — if,  in  short 
the  finite  and  temporal  will  develop  into  the  infinite  and  eter- 
nal— then  there  is  some  reason  in  the  universe  ;  otherwise 
it  is  "  confusion  worse  confounded."  Hence  we  may 
hold,  with  Prof.  John  Fiske,  that  the  more  thoroughly  we 
comprehend  that  process  of  evolution  by  which  things 
have  come  to  be  what  they  are,  the  more  we  are  likely  to 
feel  that  to  deny  the  everlasting  persistence  of  the  spir- 
itual element  in  man  is  to  rob  the  whole  process  of  its 
meaning.  Such  a  crowning  wonder  (as  the  soul's  immor- 
tality) seems  no  more  than  the  fit  climax  to  a  creative 
work  that  has  been  ineffably  beautiful  and  marvelous  in 
all  its  myriad  stages." 


l8o  TOPICS  OF  THE  TIMES. 

It  is  one  of  Mr.  Spencer's  profoundest  ideas  that  the 
Deity  may  be  something  higher  than  Personality  :  He  may 
transcend  Intelligence  and  Will  as  far  as  these  transcend 
mechanical  motion.* 

May  not  this  be  the  germ  of  truth  in  the  Trinitarian  idea 
of  God,?  Certainly  the  "  personality  "  spoken  of  by  Trini- 
tarians is  something  quite  different  from  personality  such 
as  we  know  it  in  ever3^-day  life. 

But  if  God  be  something  higher  than  we  can  imagine 
(and  who  doubts  this  }),  if  there  be  modes  of  Being  in 
the  unseen  world  and  beyond  the  tomb  which  far  transcend 
any  which  we  know  on  earth,  does  not  a  boundless  vista 
of  existence  open  up  before  us  adown  which  may  march 
the  great  procession  of  Humanity  through  the  coming  ages 
of  the  future.?  At  any  rate,  it  is  more  reasonable  to  believe 
in  such  a  continuous  development  of  things,  especially  of 
souls,  than  it  is  to  believe  in  their  disappearance  in  the 
night  of  nothingness. 

A  fourth  fact  which  suggests  immortality  is  the  universal 
belief  of  7na7i  in  this  doctrine.  There  is  no  belief  so  uni- 
versal. Tribes  of  savages  have  been  found  that  had  no 
religion — or,  at  least,  none  that  the  discoverers  considered 
worthy  of  this  sacred  name — but  no  tribe  has  been  found 
that  did  not  believe  in  gliosis,  and,  therefore,  in  the  sur- 
vival of  the  soul  after  death. 

The  ancient  Egyptians  embalmed  the  bodies  of  their 
dead  in  order  that  the  soul  might  reinhabit  them  ;  the  old 
Greeks  and  Romans  pictured  the  unseen  world  filled  with 
the  ghostly  shades  of  the  departed  wandering  amid  the 
delights  of  Elysium  or  in  the  gloomy  realms  of  Tartarus  ; 
the  Hindu  and  the  Buddhist  dream  of  eternal  rest  in  the 
bosom  of  Brahm  ;  the  Chinese  worship  their  ancestors  ; 
the  American  Indian  looks  forward  to  the  "  happy  hunting- 
ground";  the  lowest  savage  of  Africa  or  the  South  Sea 
Islands  believes  that  the  ghosts  of  his  dead  friends  lurk  in 
the  neighboring  bush  or  roam  about  their  old  homes  when 
night  flings  her  dark  mantle  over  the  earth.  This  uni- 
versal belief  in  immortality  declares  it  to  be  a  natural  in- 
stinct of  the  soul,  and  we  cannot  believe  that  all  men  are 
deceived — that  the  deepest  and  most  universal  beliefs  of 
the  soul  are  false — that  man's  nature  gives  him  the  lie. 
The  soul  believes  in  its  own  persistence,  and  feels  itself 
*  ''  First  Principles,"  p.  109. 


E  VIDENCE  OF  LIFE  AFTER  DEA  Til.  i  g  i 

capable  of  eternal  life,  and  yearns  for  it.  In  the  physical 
world  no  organ  exists  without  a  sphere  of  action  :  every 
part  of  the  body  performs  a  definite  work.  The  eye  is 
made  for  seeing,  and,  accordingly,  light  is  furnished  that 
it  7nay  see.  The  ear  is  made  for  hearing,  and,  accord- 
ingly, the  atmosphere  exists  as  a  medium  of"  sound.  The 
hand  is  made  to  feel,  and  hence  there  are  things  to  be  felt. 
Shall  we,  then,  believe  that  the  eye  of  the  soul  may  per- 
ceive the  Eternal  City  as  JMoses  saw  the  Promised  Land 
from  Pisgah's  lofty  height  only  to  die  without  entering  into 
its  joys?  Shall  we  believe  that  the  spiritual  ear  may  catch 
the  strains  of  celestial  choirs  only  to  have  them  drowned 
by  the  roar  and  crash  of  perishing  worlds  ?  Shall  we 
believe  that  the  hand  of  faith  may  grasp  the  throne  of  the 
Eternal  only  to  be  hurled  into  the  abyss  of  Annihilation  .? 
Never  !  All  the  voices  of  the  past  protest,  and  declare  that 
beyond  the  snows  of  this  chill  world  ''there  is  a  land  of 
pure  delight,  where  saints  immortal  reign."  As  I  stand 
beside  the  good  king  David,  bending  over  the  dead  body 
of  his  beloved  child,  and  hear  him  cry,  "I  shall  go  to  him, 
though  he  shall  not  return  to  me  !  "  As  I  sit  with  Job  in 
his  sackcloth  and  ashes,  and  listen  to  that  ringing  exclama- 
tion, "I  knoiv  that  my  Redeemer  liveth,.  and  apart  from  my 
flesh  shall  I  see  God  !  "  As  I  witness  the  stoning  of  saintly 
Stephen,  and  hear  his  death-cry,  "Lord  Jesus,  receive  my 
spirit !  "  As  I  stand  in  Paul's  prison  cell,  and  hear  him 
exclaim,  in  full  assurance  of  faith,  "  I  have  fought  a  good 
fight,  I  have  finished  my  course,  and  henceforth  there  is 
laid  up  for  me  a  crown  of  righteousness  !  "  As  I  stand 
amid  the  flames  of  the  martyrs,  and  witness  them  submit- 
ting to  the  fires  of  hell  in  the  hope  of  the  joys  of  heaven, 
I  cannot  believe  that  there  is  nothing  immortal — nothnig 
Godlike  in  man  !  Above  all,  when  I  hear  that  heart-rend- 
ing cry  of  Christ  upon  the  cross  :  ''Father,  into  Thy  hands 
I  commend  My  spirit !  "  I  cannot  believe  that  only  a  hollow 
echo  through  the  vast  void  of  nothingness  was  its  only 
answer.  It  would  be  giving  the  lie  to  the  deepest  convic- 
tions of  the  soul ;  it  would  be  stamping  the  noblest  work 
of  God  with  the  mark  of  deception  and  sham,  and  this 
would  be  irrational. 

It  is  said  that  Death  is  the  bourne  whence  no  traveller 
e'er  returns,  and  this  is  generally  true  ;  yet  I  think  we  have 
sufficient  evidence  to  show  that  there  has  been,  at  least. 


1 82  TOPICS  OF  THE  TIMES. 

one  great  exception  to  this  rule,  in  the  case  of  Jesus  Christ. 
The  resurrection  of  Christ,  along  with  all  other  miracles, 
has  been  most  violently  attacked  by  the  ruthless  skepticism 
of  our  day,  and  it  has  been  shown  that  many  details  of  the 
stories  relating  this  event  are  of  unknown  authorship  and 
are  unreliable,  and  yet,  despite  all,  it  seems  to  me  that  the 
kernel  of  the  stories  is  untouched.  Let  it  be  granted  that 
the  authorship  of  the  Gospels,  as  they  now  stand,  is  un- 
known— that  the  authorship  of  many  of  the  Epistles  is 
equally  unknown — yet  all  these  writings  confessedly  date 
back  to  the  close  of  the  first  and  beginning  of  the  second 
century  of  our  era,  while  the  Epistles  to  the  Romans,  Gala- 
tians,  Corinthians  and  some  others  are  admitted  to  be 
the  works  of  St.  Paul,  written  some  twenty-five  years 
after  the  death  of  Christ.  Strip  off  whatever  accretions 
seem  to  have  gathered  around  the  faith  in  the  re-appear- 
ance of  Jesus  after  death  to  His  disciples  ;  admit  that  His 
bodily  resurrection  cannot  be  proved — yet  even  so  we  may 
believe  that  He  made  Himself  known  to  His  disciples  after 
His  death  ;  He  sent  them  "  a  telegram  from  heaven  "  that 
He  was  alive  for  evermore.  It  cannot  be  denied  that  all 
the  disciples  believed  that  they  saw  the  risen  Jesus.  Hun- 
dreds of  them  believed  they  saw  Him,  at  the  same  time, 
and  they  succeeded  in  convincing  others  of  this  fact,  and 
upon  it  founded  the  Christian  Church.  The  theory  of  vis- 
ions— the  claim  that  they  only  i7nagined  that  they  saw  Him 
alive  after  He  was  dead — is  incredible.  One  condition  is 
indispensably  necessary  to  such  visions  or  imaginings. 
Those  who  have  them  are  generally  possessed  by  "  a  fixed 
idea"  that  a  certain  event  will  happen.*  But  this  neces- 
sary condition  was  not  supplied  in  the  caseof  the  disciples 
of  Christ.  The  crucifixion  utterly  shattered  all  their  hopes 
about  His  establishing  the  Messiah's  kingdom,  and  the 
story  about  Thomas's  doubt,  as  well  as  the  stories  about  the 
disbelief  of  the  other  disciples  in  the  resurrection,  show  that 
they  did  not  expect  any  such  occurrence,  t  Something, 
therefore,  must  have  happened  outside  of  the  minds  of  the 
disciples  to  create  this  belief,  and,  taking  the  New  Testa- 
ment as  a  whole,  it  seems  to  me  not  irrational  to  believe 
that  Jesus  appeared  as  a  spirit  to  His  disciples  after  His 

*See  Carpenter's  "Mental  Physiology,"  pp.  619-623,  664-669,  etc. 
t  See  Row's  "  Bampton  Lectures,"  Lect.  VII    and  Christlieb's  "  Modern 
Doubt,"  Chap.  VII.,  etc. 


EVIDENCE  OF  LIFE  AFTER  DEATH.  183 

death.  Of  course,  if  science  did  not  show  that  there  is  a 
spirit  in  man — if  it  disproved  God's  existence  and  the  soul's 
existence,  then,  indeed,  no  amount  of  historical  evidence 
could  neutralize  this  demonstration.  But  we  have  just 
seen  that  science  does  not  disprove  either  the  existence  of 
God  or  the  soul.  On  the  contrary,  it  furnishes  many  facts 
in  proof  of  these  two  important  beliefs,  and,  believing  in 
God  and  the  soul,  believing  that  He  sends  men  into  the 
world  to  teach  religion,  as  well  as  science  and  philosophy 
and  poetry,  we  may  believe  that  He  sent  Jesus  for  this 
purpose,  and  that  through  Him  life  and  immortality  have 
l)een  brought  to  light  ;  the  throbbing  hopes  which  nature 
inspires  in  the  soul  are  confirmed  by  the  more  positive 
assurance  of  the  great  Teacher. 

But  do  you  tell  me,  my  friends,  that  I  have  not  proved 
the  immortality  of  the  soul,  after  all?  Well,  no  ;  I  have 
not  proved  it  as  you  would  demonstrate  a  proposition  in 
mathematics  on  the  black-board.  I  have  not  put  my  finger 
on  its  abode  beyond  the  grave,  and  said,  ''Behold,  there  it 
is  !  "  But  1  have  stated  facts  which  you,  as  reasonable 
men  and  women,  cannot  ignore  ;  and  they  are  sufficient  to 
show  that  whether  there  is  another  life  or  not,  it  is  well 
worth  our  while  to  live  as  though  there  were.  They  are 
suf^cient  to  afford  a  basis  for  faith — to  confirm  the  natural 
convictions  and  instincts  of  the  soul.  No  one  accepting 
them  can  be  justly  accused  of  undue  credulity,  for  we 
accept  many  opinions  as  true  the  proofs  of  which  are 
much  weaker  than  the  evidences  of  the  soul's  immor- 
tality. Thus,  we  believe  that  light  is  produced  by  the 
vibration  of  the  particles  of  a  substance  called  ether,  but 
we  do  not  know  that  there  is  such  a  thing  as  this  ether.  We 
are  forced  to  assume  its  existence  in  order  to  account  for 
the  phenomena  of  light.  We  believe  that  sound  is  pro- 
duced by  the  vibration  of  the  particles  of  the  atmosphere, 
but  we  cannot  prove  this,  and  some  acute  thinkers  have 
seriously  doubted  it.  We  believe  that  matter  is  composed 
of  infinitely  small  atoms,  which  are  held  together  in  a  body 
by  forces  resident  in  these  atoms  ;  yet  when  we  attempt  to 
think  this  proposition  out  in  intelligible  terms  we  are  hope- 
lessly puzzled.  These  and  many  other  scientific  beliefs 
rest  on  pure  assumptions,  and  yet  the  assumptions  are 
necessary  to  explain  certain  facts.  So,  we  contend,  there 
are  facts  which  point  to  the  continuance  of  the  human  soul 


1 84  TOPICS  OF  THE  TIMES. 

after  death.  This  assumption  is  necessary  to  \.\\q per/ech'o7t 
of  the  grand  evolution  of  things  that  has  been  going  on  for 
milhons  upon  millions  of  ages  ;  necessary  to  the  explana- 
tion of  the  process  ;  necessary  to  prevent  our  being  put  to 
intellectual  confusion  ;  necessary  to  the  satisfaction  of  the 
deepest  instincts  of  the  soul  ;  necessary  to  the  discharge  of 
duty  in  its  highest  sense  ;  necessary  to  make  life  endur- 
able and  happy. 

Our  entire  life  consists  in  balancing  facts  against  facts 
and  probabilities  against  probabilities,  and  were  we  to  act 
upon  demonstrative  evidence  only,  we  would  not  act  at 
all.  Let  us,  therefore,  not  demand  it  in  the  case  before  us. 
In  any  event  belief  in  immortality  cannot  hurt  us.  On  the 
contrarv,  it  is  an  ennobling  belief.  It  raises  us  above  the 
brute,  and  tills  us  with  aspirations  that  stretch  on  into  the 
depths  of  eternity.  It  consoles  us  in  our  sorrows  and  robs 
death  of  ^ts  terrors.  It  elevates  life  in  every  respect.  It 
makes  God  appear  as  the  Good  Father  and  man  as  the 
child  of  the  Highest. 

I  would  not  dogmatize  on  this  profound  subject,  but, 
oh  !  I  cannot,  cannot  believe  in  the  hard  philosophy  of 
Materialism  and  Fate.  If  my  faith  be  only  a  dream,  let  me 
continue  to  dream.  If  it  be  only  a  vision,  it  is  a  glorious 
vision,  and  I  would  not  be  robbed  of  it.  I  must  rather 
exclaim  with  Whittier  : 

*'  I  know  not  what  the  future  hath 
Of  marvel  or  surprise  ; 
Assured  alone  that  life  and  death 
His  mercy  underhes. 

**  And  so,  beside  the  silent  sea, 
I  wait  the  muffled  oar  ; 
No  harm  from  Him  can  come  to  me 
On  ocean  or  on  shore. 

"  I  know  not  where  His  islands  lift 
Their  fronded  palms  in  air  ; 
I  only  know  I  cannot  drift 
Beyond  His  love  and  care." 

''Father,  into  thy  hands  I  commend  my  spirit."    Amen. 


THE  GOD-FILLED  MAN. 


185 


SERMON    VII. 

THE  GOD-FILLED  MAN. 

Text : — In  him  dwelleth  all  the  fulness  of  the  Godhead  bodily. — CoLOS- 
SIANS  ii.  9, 

In  order  to  understand  the  doctrine  of  Christ's  Incarna- 
tion or  Divinity,  we  must  first  get  a  correct  idea  of  God. 
The  popular  theological  conception  of  God  holds  that 
there  3.XQ  /our  Persons  in  the  Godhead,  viz.,  three  Divine 
Persons  and  one  human  person.  The  important  question, 
therefore,  is.  What  does  this  word  ''Person'"'  mean  as 
applied  to  God.?  We  know,  of  course,  what  it  means 
as  applied  to  man.  Man  is  a  twofold  being,  consisting 
of  a  body  and  a  soul.  Imagine  his  body  stripped  off,  and 
you  would  have  left  only  his  ghost — his  spirit,  and  this  is 
believed  to  be  a  power  capable  of  thinking,  acting  and 
discerning  between  good  and  evil.  In  other  words,  man's 
spiritual  nature  consists  of  his  intellect,  his  conscience 
and  his  will.  These  are  the  three  essential  elements  in 
spirit. 

Now,  of  course,  God  has  no  body.  He  is  "without 
body,  parts  or  passions."  He  is  pure  Spirit — the  Infinite 
and  Eternal  Mind,  Conscience  and  Will.  Subtract  all  of 
man's  moral  or  spiritual  imperfections  and  magnify  in- 
finitely his  perfections,  and  you  have  the  popular  theory  of 
the  Godhead— cr  rather  you  will  have  one-third  of  that 
theory,  for  the  popular  doctrine  of  God  is  that  He  consists 
of  three  such  Infinite  Persons  or  Spirits  as  that  defined. 
The  Athanasian  Creed,  which  is  the  authoritative  expression 
of  this  doctrine,  says  :  "The  Father  is  eternal,  the  Son  is 
eternal  and  the  Holy  Spirit  is  eternal ;  and  yet  there  are  not 
three  eternals,  but  one  Eternal.  Likewise,  the  Father  is 
Omnipotent,  the  Son  is  Omnipotent  and  the  Holy  Spirit  is 
Omnipotent ;  and  yet  there  are  not  three  Omnipotents,  but 
one  Omnipotent, "and  finally,  "  the  Father  is  God,  the  Son 


1 86  TOPICS  OF  THE  TIMES. 

is  God  and  the  Holy  Spirit  is  God,  and  yet  there  are  not  three 
Gods,  but  one  God."  In  other  words,  the  creed  means 
that  there  are  three  Spirits  united  in  one  Spirit  in  the  God- 
head, but  I  am  free  to  confess  that  this  seems  to  me  a  flat 
contradiction — not  a  myster}-,  but  a  contradiction  in  terms 
and  ideas.  Of  course,  God  is  a  mystery,  everything  is  a 
mystery,  even  a  straw  and  certainly  man  are  both  great 
mysteries,  but  this  theory  of  God  seems  to  be  a  verbal 
contradiction,  and  I  have  never  read  or  heard  an  exposi- 
tion of  the  doctrine,  which  did  not  either  explain  away 
two  of  the  Persons  in  the  Godhead,  or  leave  the  contradic- 
tion baptized  with  the  name  of  "  mystery."  Still,  that  is 
the  traditional  and  popular  idea  of  God,  and  it  is  further 
maintained  that  the  Second  Person  of  the  Godhead  took 
man's  nature  upon  Him,  so  that  "in  Him  two  whole  and 
perfect  natures,  that  is,  the  Godhead  and  Manhood,  were 
joined  together,  never  to  be  divided"  hence  there  are  four 
Persons  in  the  Godhead. 

Another  idea  of  God,  held  by  many  of  the  ablest  minds 
of  our  day,  which  is  even  older  than  the  Athanasian  doc- 
trine, dating  back  to  the  third  century,  is  this  :  God  (it  is 
said)  is  the  one  Infinite  and  Eternal  Spirit  that  created  and 
sustains  all  things.  But  He  manifests  Himself  in  three 
different  ways — in  one  as  Creator,  in  another  as  Redeemer, 
and  in  a  third  as  Sanctifier.  In  other  words,  the  one  God 
assumes  three  different  forms,  somewhat  as  an  actor  on  a 
stage  appears  in  different  costumes  :  in  one  He  appears 
as  God  the  Father  of  all  things  :  in  another.  He  appears  as 
God  the  Son  redeeming  mankind  from  sin  in  and  through 
Jesus  Christ ;  and  finally.  He  appears  as  God  the  Holy 
Ghost  completing  the  work  which  the  Redeemer  began  ; 
but  in  all  forms  He  is  one  and  the  self-same  Being.  This 
idea  of  God  is  more  popular  among  scientific  men  than 
the  Athanasian  doctrine,  and  certaii:»ly  does  seem  to  pre- 
sent less  difficulty  than  that  theory.  But  for  my  own  part, 
I  consider  both  views  simply  and  mainly  interesting  as 
ingenious  speculations  on  a  great  subject,  which  the 
human  mind  cannot  fathom.  They  are  "words  flung  out 
at  a  great  subject."  While,  therefore,  I  would  prefer  the 
second  to  the  first  theory  of  the  Godhead  were  I  forced  to 
accept  one  of  them,  yet  I  am  not  compelled  to  accept  either. 
I  am  content  to  rest  my  faith  in  God  upon  the  simple  words 
of  Jesus  in  the  Gospels.      I  believe  He  is  Spirit  (John   iv. 


THE  GOD-FILLED  MAN.  187 

24) — the  Infinite  and  Eternal  Spirit  everywhere  manifested 
HI  nature,  who  revealed  Himself  to  the  Prophets  and 
Apostles,  and  in  Jesus  Christ,  under  the  name  of  Father 
Son  and  Holy  Ghost  and  as  such  I  worship  Him.  But 
what  is  His  exact  nature — what  is  exactly  meant  by  the 
names  "  Father,"  "Son  "  and  "  Holy  Ghost  " — what  is  the 
relation  of  the  three  "Persons,"  or  Divine  Essences,  to 
each  other,  the  Scriptures  do  not  say,  and  man  cannot 
find  out.  He  cannot,  as  old  Job  long-  ago  told  him,  by 
searching  find  out  God  ;  he  cannot  find  out  the  Almighty 
to  perfection.  He  is  high  as  heaven  ;  what  can  w^e  do? 
deeper  than  hell;  what  can  we  know.?  He  is  larger  than 
the  earth  or  the  universe  (Job  xi.  7-9)  and  comprehendeth 
it,  as  it  were,  in  the  hollow  of  His  hand,  and  since  our 
telescopes  fail  to  penetrate  the  depths  of  space  to  the  limits 
of  the  universe ;  since  our  microscopes  cannot  analyze 
matter  so  that  we  may  know  what  it  is ;  why  should  we 
attempt  to  fathom  the  nature  of  the  Creator  and  sustainer 
of  all  things  ?  Nothing  but  failure  has  ever  resulted  ;  noth- 
ing but  failure  can  ever  result  from  an  attempt  to  "fly 
up  into  the  secrets  of  the  Deity  on  the  waxen  wings  ot 
the  human  understanding."  Let  us,  therefore,  content 
ourselves  in  the  simple  belief  that  God  is — that  "in  Him 
we  live,  move,  and  have  our  being" — that  "He  is  about 
our  paths  and  about  our  bed  and  spieth  out  all  our  ways  " 
— that  if  we  were  to  ascend  up  into  heaven,  we  would 
find  Him  there  ;  if  we  were  to  make  our  bed  in  the  grave, 
behold.  He  would  be  there  also.  If  we  were  to  take  the 
wings  of  the  morning  and  dwell  in  the  uttermost  part  of 
the  universe,  even  there  His  hand  would  lead  us,  and  His 
right  hand  hold  us.  (Psalm  cxxxix.  8-12).  He  is  the 
great  and  good  Spirit  who  is  not  far  from  every  one  of  us. 
but  gives  us  rain  and  fruitful  seasons,  filling  our  hearts 
with  gladness,  and  it  is  this  idea  of  God  which  I  would 
impress  upon  you — the  God  that  works  in  nature  and  in 
man  and  upholds  all  things  by  the  word  of  His  power — the 
living  God,  not  the  dead  idol  of  traditional  and  popular 
theology ;  and  if  you  believe  in  this  God,  then  you  may 
let  such  speculations  about  His  nature  as  those  mentioned 
go  to  the  winds. 

Until  recently  God  was  thought  of  as  a  Being  living 
apart  from  and  outside  the  universe  He  had  created.  It 
was  believed  that  He  created  the  world,  wound  it  up,  set 


1 88  TOPICS  OF  THE  TIMES. 

it  a-going  and  then  withdrew  into  the  infinite  solitude  sur- 
rounding the  world  from  which  He  watched  its  progress 
and  occasionally  stepped  down  to  earth  to  instruct  men  as 
to  what  they  should  do  and  punish  them  for  the  wrong 
they  had  done  by  sending  disease  or  floods  or  earthquakes 
upon  them.  But  this  idea  of  God  has  been  more  and 
more  given  up,  on  account  of  the  difficulties  it  involves, 
until  now  nearly  all  eminent  theologians  hold  that  God  is 
the  Infinite  and  Eternal  Spirit  that  resides  in  and  presides 
over  all  Nature  ;  the  forces  of  Nature  have  their  root  in 
His  will  ;  the  motions  of  Nature  are  motions  of  His  power  ; 
the  thoughts  of  men  flow  forth  from  the  Infinite  Thinker  ; 
the  good  deeds  of  men  are  prompted  by  the  Good  Spirit. 
In  short,  God  is  thought  of  as  the  Soul  of  the  Universe, 
from  whom  all  things  proceed,  and  in  whom  all  things 
consist.  And  holding  such  an  idea  of  God  we  can  more 
easily  understand  His  manifestation  in  Jesus  Christ.  "  In 
Him  dwelt  all  the  fulness  of  the  Godhead  bodily."  In 
other  words,  Jesus  was  the  God-filled  man  ;  He  was  filled 
full  of  God  ;  His  body  was  packed,  so  to  speak,  with  Deity. 
To  make  this  clear  let  me  quote  the  striking  words  of  an 
English  clergyman. 

''You  ask  me,"  he  says,  ''  whether  all  God  was  in  Jesus. 
I  say.  No  ;  Jesus  says,  No.  Sides  of  the  Almighty,  of  the 
Invisible,  the  Eternal — aspects  inconceivable  to  man — 
never  could  be  revealed  through  man's  nature.  God  over- 
laps Jesus.      'My  Father  is  greater  than  I,'  he  says. 

"You  ask  me  of  Torbay  or  Barmouth  creek  whether  it 
is  sea .?  I  say.  Yes.  You  ask  if  it  is  the  whole  of  the  sea } 
I  say,  No.  Yet  a  cupful,  or  a  pailful  and  every  part  of 
the  bay  or  creek  is  true  sea — the  sea,  having  its  own  mighty 
range  and  infinite  potencies,  has  verily  and  indeed  flowed 
into  that  earth-bound  creek.  All  that  is  in  Torbay  is  sea, 
but  all  the  sea  is  not  in  Torbay  ;  so  all  that  is  in  Jesus  is 
God,  but  all  God  is  not  in  Jesus."  In  Him  God  dwelt  bodily. 
The  human  spirit  of  Jesus  flowed  forth  from  the  infinite 
ocean  of  Spirit,  which  surrounds  and  pervades  the  universe 
and  man,  and  the  union  of  His  human  Spirit  with  the 
Divine  was  essential  and  permanent,  just  as  the  earth- 
bound  bay  is  connected  with  the  ocean — is  composed  of 
the  same  substance.  But  how  do  we  know  that  this  was 
so  .?  How  can  we  prove  that  Jesus  was  filled  full  of  God  ? 
From    these    three    great    facts  :      i.      Every   man's  spirit 


THE  GOD-FILLED  MAN.  189 

comes  from  God,  for  He  is  the  Father  of  all  Spirits,  The 
spirit  of  Jesus,  therefore,  could  not  be  derived  from  any 
other  source.  Mr.  Spencer  himself  tells  us  that  that 
"  Power  manifested  throughout  the  universe,  distinguished 
as  material,  is  the  same  Power  which  in  ourselves  wells 
up  under  the  form  of  consciousness."  That  is  merely 
another  way  of  saying  that  man  is  created  in  the  image  of 
God,  His  spirit  is  a  miniature  of  the  infinite  and  Eternal 
Spirit,  and  Christ's  spirit  was  a  perfect  finite  transcript,  so 
to  speak,  of  the  Divine  Spirit.  The  difference  between 
His  human  spirit  and  other  spirits  lay  in  its  perfection. 
He  was  perfect ;  man  is  imperfect. 

2.  The  general  law  or  fact  of  spiritual  development 
proves  that  Jesus  was  the  God-filled  man.  According  to 
the  doctrine  of  development,  there  has  been  going  on 
from  the  beginning  of  the  present  order  of  things  a  twofold 
development,  viz.,  an  evolution  of  material  forms  and  an 
evolution  of  immaterial  forces.  The  physical  development 
resulted  in  the  production  of  the  human  body,  and  the 
spiritual  development  produced  the  human  soul.  But  at 
first  the  soul  was  little  more  than  an  appendage  to  the  body, 
and  through  the  long  ages  intervening  between  primitive 
and  modern  times,  the  soul  has  been  struggling  to  get  the 
mastery  over  the  body — the  animal  nature  of  man.  In 
such  spiritual  giants  as  Abraham,  Moses,  Job,  Isaiah, 
Buddha,  Confucius,  Zoroaster,  Socrates,  and  Paul,  the  on- 
going wave  of  spirit  rose  very  high,  but  it  rose  highest  in 
Jesus  of  Nazareth.  He  stands  supreme  among  the  spiritual 
Goliaths,  as  even  the  most  radical  skeptics  admit.  Those 
other  God-sent  men  were  only  partially  filled  with  God, 
but  all  that  was  in  Jesus  was  God  :  "  in  Him  dwelt  the  ful- 
ness of  God."  Nor  is  this  mere  speculation.  On  the  contrary, 
it  was  as  natural  and  as  necessary  that  the  spiritual  evolu- 
tion should  reach  completion  and  perfection  in  some  in- 
dividual as  it  was  that  physical  evolution  should  end  in  the 
production  of  the  human  body.  "  But,"  it  will  be  said, 
"  after  the  production  of  the  first  human  body,  numbers 
of  other  bodies  were  produced,  and  are  still  being  produced. 
Why,  then,  are  there  not  more  Christs  produced.?  Ought 
there  not  to  be,  according  to  this  view .? "  I  answer : 
He — Jesus — was  the  realization  of  God's  idea  of  what  man 
ought  to  be.  He  is  our  exemplar  :  we  are  to  become  more 
and  more  like  Him  until  He  is  completely  formed  in  us 


90 


TOPICS  OF  THE  TIMES. 


(Gal.  iv,  19) — not  indeed  by  a  miracle,  or  sudden  leap  in 
spiritual  development,  such  as  occurred  when  He  was  born, 
but  by  a  more  gradual  process ;  so  that  while  there  have 
not  been,  and  doubtless  will  not  be,  any  more  Christs, 
there  are  and  will  be  many  Christlike  persons,  who  will  be 
slowly  but  surely  developed  into  perfect  men,  *' unto  the 
measure  of  the  stature  of  the  fulness  of  Christ"  (Ephes.iv. 
13).  "  He  was  the  possibility  of  the  human  race  made  real ;  " 
and  if  this  possibility  is  not  fully  realized  in  other  cases 
in  this  life,  it  will  be  in  the  next.  That  is  the  New  Testa- 
ment doctrine  of  regeneration  or  the  *'new  birth." 

3.  The  sinlessness  of  Jesus  proves  Him  to  have  been 
filled  with  God,  and  that  He  was  sinless  is  amply  proved 
by  historical  evidence.  It  is  pretty  generally  supposed, 
among  a  certain  class  of  thinkers,  that,  because  the  New 
Testament  has  been  vehemently  attacked  by  skeptical 
critics  during  the  present  century,  its  authority  is  utterly 
exploded.  But  these  people  should  remember  that  even 
the  most  radical  critics  admit  that  St.  Paul  WTote  at  least 
four,  and  many  of  them  admit  that  he  wrote  eight  or  ten,  of 
the  epistles  usually  attributed  to  him,  and  these  epistles 
date  back  to  within  twenty-five  years  of  the  death  of  Christ— 
a  period  no  longer  than  that  intervening  between  the  late 
Civil  War  and  the  present  day — so  that  we  are  by  no 
means  confined  to  the  Gospels  for  proofs  of  Christ's  divine 
character.  On  the  contrary,  St.  Paul's  unquestionably 
genuine  epistles  are  the  earliest  records  of  Christ's  life  and 
teaching,  and  even  if  the  Gospels  had  been  lost  we  would 
still  have  ample  historical  evidence  to  prove  that  all  of 
Christ's  disciples  believed  Him  to  be  sinless  and  wor- 
shipped Him  as  God's  Son.  And  let  us  consider  what  this 
means.  Suppose  a  man  were  to  arise  now,  from  some 
obscure  hamlet  in  our  land,  and  were  to  proclaim  himself 
to  be  sinless,  what  sort  of  reception  would  he  meet  with  ? 
Why,  he  would  be  hooted  and  hissed  at.  We  actually  do 
laugh  at  certain  people  who  claim  to  be  "sanctified'"; 
and  we  do  so  because  a  perfectly  holy  man  would  be  a 
moral  miracle.  Human  nature  is  the  same  in  all  ages.  The 
old  Jews,  Greeks  and  Romans  did  not  believe  in  human 
perfection  any  more  than  we  do.  They  knew  that  there 
was  none  that  doeth  good;  no,  not  one.  They  knew  that  all 
had  sinned  and  come  short  of  the  glorious  ideal  of  God, 
and  hence  the  fact  that  a  poor  carpenter  of  Nazareth  sue- 


THE  GOD-FILLED  MAN. 


191 


ceeded  in  convincing  hundreds  of  men  that  He  was  sinless 
is  suthcient  to  satisfy  an  unbiased  mind  that  it  was  a  fact. 
Indeed  the  very  fact  that  He  was  crucified  shows  that  He 
was  an  extraordinarily  good  man.  The  world  has  generally 
killed  and  persecuted  its  best  men.  The  world  loves 
darkness  rather  than  light,  because  its  deeds  are  evil. 
And  because  Jesus  rebuked — unsparingly  denounced — those 
evil  deeds,  he  was  crucified.  And  if  so  brave  a  man  as  He 
had  had  imperfections,  if  He  who  boldly  proclaimed  Him- 
self the  great  reformer  of  His  age  had  been  like  other  men  , 
this  fact  would  have  been  laid  hold  of.  as  an  excuse  for 
His  death,  but  not  the  faintest  whisper  against  His  moral 
character  comes  floating  across  the  centuries.  We  know 
of  Abraham's  sins  and  Paul's  shortcomings,  and  Luther's 
weaknesses,  but  the  challenge  of  Jesus, ' '  Which  of  you  con- 
victeth  me  of  sin  .? "  remains  unanswered.  Every  tradi- 
tion about  Him  and  His  life  and  death  declares  Him  to  have 
been  a  sinless  man.  Moreover,  we  do  not  admit  that,  be- 
cause the  authorship  of  the  Gospels  is  uncertain,  and  some 
of  their  details  unreliable',  they  are  wholly  untrustworthy. 
On  the  contrary,  even  the  most  radical  skeptics  admit  that 
they  contain  the  essential  facts  of  our  Lord's  teaching. 
They  reject  a  few  of  the  stories  about  miracles,  and  inter- 
pret other  miracles  as  natural  events;  but  they  admit  that 
the  teaching  of  the  Lord's  Prayer,  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount, 
the  Parables,  etc.,  is  too  profound  and  spiritual  and  true  to 
have  come  from  the  simple-minded  Jewish  and  Galilean 
peasants  who  wrote  the  Gospels,  and  h^nce  the  great 
Teacher  must  have  been  the  author  of  it.  But  we  urge  that 
it  was  not  only  impossible  for  such  writers  to  forge  such 
productions  as  the  Lord's  Prayer  and  the  Sermon  on  the 
Mount,  but  it  was  equally  impossible  for  them  to  forge  the 
sketch  of  Christ's  character  given  in  the  Gospels.  Let  us 
grant,  for  the  sake  of  argument,  that  the  Gospels,  as  they 
now  stand,  were  not  written  by  Matthew,  Mark,  Luke  and 
John;  let  us  suppose  that  they  are  complete  forgeries  :  then 
what.?  Why,  we  are  forced  to  beheve  that  the  greatest 
religious  Character  in  history  was  conceived  and  drawn 
by  a  number  of  Jewish  and  Galilean  peasants  who  could 
scarcely  speak  and  write  correctly  !  Such  a  supposition  is 
absurd,  and  was  therefore  rejected  by  the  late  John  Stuart 
Mill,  who  was  considered  an  atheist  by  many,  and  was 
certainly  a  radical  skeptic.      If  each  writer  of  the   Gospels 


192 


TOPICS  OF  THE  TIMES. 


had  been  a  Shakespeare,  such  a  result  could  not  have  been 
accomplished  ;  for  Christ,  as  all  admit,  was  a  greater  char- 
acter than  any  Shakespeare  ever  imagined  or  produced.  We 
know  that  the  writers  of  the  Gospels  were  not  Shakespeares, 
and  therefore  we  are  compelled  to  believe  that  they  have 
given  us  a  true  sketch  of  the  Master  they  loved.  It  is 
easier  to  believe  this  than  to  believe  that  their  sketch  is  a 
forgery.  Even  if  it  be  admitted,  as  some  claim,  that  they 
made  use  of  the  Old  Testament  ideas  of  the  Messiah  in 
working  out  their  picture  of  Jesus,  yet  there  were  so  many 
hands  employed  in  painting  this  picture  (and  there  was 
evidently  no  collusion  between  them) — the  work  was  done 
in  so  inartificial  a  manner — it  is  so  plain  from  the  narratives 
themselves  that  the  writers  were  not  striving  to  paint  a 
picture — a  fancy-sketch  ;  the  story  is  so  simple  and  childlike 
that  no  one  would  ever  dream  of  its  being  a  forgery  unless 
this  idea  was  suggested  to  him  either  by  a  skeptic  or  the 
stories  of  miracles.  But  we  may  leave  on  one  side  the 
stories  of  miracles,  save  only  such  as  can  be  explained  as 
natural  events,  and  enough  unquestionably  historical  mat- 
ter is  left  to  prove  our  point  For  it  must  be  remembered, 
as  already  stated,  that  the  genuine  epistles  of  St.  Paul 
confirm  the  Gospel  sketch  of  Christ's  character.  They  do 
not,  indeed,  confirm  all  the  stories  in  the  Gospels,  but  the 
essential  facts  of  Christ's  life  and  character  are  confirmed 
by  the  great  Apostle,  who  had  every  means  of  learning  the 
truth.  Finally,  remember,  that  for  nineteen  centuries  the 
most  enlightened  portion  of  the  human  race  has  worshipped 
this  Character  as  Divine.  Even  those  who  to-day  attack 
most  violently  traditional  opinions  about  the  Bible,  most 
strongly  assert  the  transcendent  character  of  Christ.  In- 
deed, the  most  radical  do  not  lay  hands  upon  the  Master, 
but  avow  infinite  respect  for  Him. 

For  such  reasons,  then,  we  believe  that  Jesus  was  filled 
full  of  God.  Every  man  s  spirit  comes  ultimately  from 
God,  flows  forth  from  the  infinite  ocean  of  Spirit,  and  so 
Christ's  must  have  come  from  the  same  source. 

Secondly,  the  onward  and  upward  movement  of  Spirit- 
ual development  would  naturally  produce  such  a  perfect 
moral  and  spiritual  nature.  And  finally,  He  not  only  con- 
vinced the  men  of  His  own  time  that  He  was  sinless,  but 
for  nineteen  centuries  He  has  held  supreme  sway  over  the 
hearts  of  the  greatest  men  that  have  lived,  ancl  therefore 


THE  GOD- FILLED  MAN. 


193 


we  aaore  Him  as  the  Son  of  God.      ''In  Him  dwelt  all  the 
fulness  of  the  Godhead  bodily." 

We  do  not  appeal  to  the  miracles  He  wrought,  for  other 
religious  teachers  have   performed  almost  if  not  quite  as 
great  miracles  as  He  performed.     We  do  not  appeal  to  His 
extraordinary  birth,  for  the  stories  of  His  birth  are  of  too 
uncertain  authorship  to  be  accepted  as  literally  correct,  and 
the  mode  of  His  birth  has  little  or  nothing  to  do  with  the 
fact  of  His  divine  character.      St.  Paul  and  the  author  of  the 
Fourth  Gospel  believed  in  His  divinity,  but  neither  says  a 
word  about  His  birth  being  different   from  that  of  other 
men.      He   came   to   take   man's    nature   upon   Him,  and, 
therefore,  it  was  proper  that  He  should  enter  this  life  as 
other  men  do.      The  Divine  Spirit  could  flow  into  human- 
ity— into  Christ's  body — without  setting  aside  the  laws  of 
generation.      But   while  we  lay  no  special   stress  on   the 
stories  of  our  Lord's  miracles,  yet  they  do  help  to  prove 
that  He  was  a  great  man,  just   as  similar   stories  about 
Moses,  Elijah,  and  St.  Paul  show  that  they  were  great  men. 
These  stones   cannot  be  rejected  as   utterly  worthless  and 
false,  even  if  we  understand  the   miracles  to  have  been 
natural  events.     The  beautiful  stories  about  the  birth,  in 
particular — the   angel-song,  the  worship  of  the  wise   men, 
the  application  of  the  prophecy  of  Isaiah  about  the  Virgin- 
born  Immanuel  to  Jesus — all  tell  in  poetical  form  the  faith 
of  Christ's  disciples  in  His  spotless  purity.     He  was,  indeed, 
'*  conceived  by  the  Holy  Ghost.  "     His  perfect  moral  and 
spiritual  nature  was  the  special  product  of  "the  Lord  and 
Giver  of  Life."     When  I  said  just  now  that  "the  natural" 
result  of  spiritual  development   would  be  the  production 
of  a  perfect  moral  character,  I  did  not  for  a  moment  intend 
to  exclude  the  agency  of  God  from  this  process — on  the 
contrary,  I  consider  that  all  natural  forces  have  their  root 
in  the  Divine  Will,  and  what  many  attribute   to  Nature,  I 
attribute  to  God.     God  is  the  great  Developer  as  well  as 
the  Creator  of  all  things.      In  the  development  of  the  world 
from  primal  chaos  He  has  wrought  many  miracles,  or  pro- 
duced extraordinary  effects  by  an  extraordinary  operation 
of  His  will.     Thus,  when  life  was   introduced  upon  our 
globe  a  special  operation  of  His  will  occurred  ;  a  miracle 
was  wrought.     Again,  when  Mind  in  its  lowest  form,  and 
especially  in   man,  was  introduced,  another  miracle  was 
wrought.     And  finally,  when  the  Perfect  Man  was  given  to 

13 


104  TOPICS  OF  THE  TIMES. 

the  wor.d  another  miracle  was  wrought :  a  perfect  moral 
and  spiritual  nature  was  produced  by  ''  the  Lord  and  Giver 
of  Life,"  thiough  the  media  of  man  to  woman;  and  this 
great  fact  is  attested  by  the  wonderful  stories  about  His 
birth,  but  especially  by  His  sinless  life.  Jesus,  then,  to 
quote  the  clergyman  just  quoted,  "was  God  manifest  in 
the  flesh.  The  significance— the  lifting  power— the  salva- 
tion of  it  lies  here.  Henceforth,  doubt  not :  plant  your 
foot  on  the  rock.  Man's  love  is  God's  love,  only  not  so 
good  :  man's  justice  is  God's  justice,  only  not  so  impartial  : 
man's  right  and  wrong  is  God's  right  and  wrong— it  is  in  the 
direction  of  it,  although  not  so  infallible  :  man's  power  is 
God's  power,  only  not  so  great.  His  ways  are  not  our 
ways,  not  because  they  are  different  in  kind,  but  because 
they  are  all  wise  and  good,  whereas  our  best  attempts  are 
mixed.  But  henceforth,  we  know  Him — because  He  was 
manifest  in  the  flesh.  Jesus  Christ  is  a  true  presentation 
and  explanation  of  God's  moral  ana  spiritual  nature,  as  far 
as  that  can  be  grasped  by  man.  We  do  not  any  longer 
grope  or  wonder  or  puzzle  about  His  will,  His  purpose 
to  usward,  or  His  character.  The  lowliest  Christian  is  at 
last  in  a  position  to  answer  that  ancient  and  bitter  cry,  "p 
that  I  knew  where  I  might  find  Him  1  "  with  "I  know  in 
whom  I  have  believed."  God  was  in  Christ  reconciling 
the  world  into  Himself  ;  teaching  men  the  Way,  the  Truth 
and  the  Life.  That  is  one  side  of  the  incarnation— God  in 
Man  !  The  other  side  is  Man  in  God  !  Jesus  the  Divine 
Representative  of  Human  Nature  !  Every  one  of  us  in  Him. 
That's  the  good  news.  A  High  Priest,  indeed.  He  is,  but 
not  separated  from  us,  not  ignorant  of  our  infirmities.  The 
assurance  of  God's  sympathy  for  us  in  Him  is  of  the  closest 
and  most  personal  kind.  No  state,  no  mood,  no  friend  or 
enemy,  not  ignorant  crucifiers— not  sinful  women,  nor 
any  aliens  from  the  commonw^ealth  of  Israel — can  escape 
from  the  Lord  of  Humanity.  The  meshes  of  God's  net  are 
woven  too  close  for  that.  Saints  are  caught  and  sinners 
are  not  let  through.  This  is  why  the  Gospel  hath  such 
subduing  and  universal  fragrance.  No  position  too  low, 
for  he  was  laid  in  a  manger;  no  sorrow  too  deep,  for  be- 
hold and  see  whether  there  was  any  sorrow  like  unto  His 
sorrow  ;  no  sin  too  dark,  for  was  He  not  tempted  in  all  points 
like  as  we  are,  yet  without  sin.?  No  suffering  too  intense, 
for  did  not  He  take   the  cup  of  agony  brimful  in  Geth- 


THE  GOD-FILLED  MAlsT.  jgr 

semane,  and  drain  it  to  the  dre^^s  on  the  Cross?  No  pil- 
grims of  the  night  so  weary  and  forlorn  but  His  voice 
reaches  them  in  the  darkness— "Come  unto  Me  all  ye  that 
are  weary  and  heavy  laden,  and  I  will  give  you  rest  !  " 

O  Christus  Consolator  !  O  Salvator  Mundi  I  O  Inexhaus- 
tible Humanity  of  God  !  O  great  heart  of  Jesus  !  ' '  Rock 
of  Ages  cleft  for  me,  let  me  hide  myself  in  Thee  !  "  Amen. 


Iy6  TOPICS  OF  THE  TIMES. 


SERMON  VIII. 

UNSHAKEN  RELIGIOUS    BELIEFS. 

Text: — And  \}i\\s%vord^  yet  once  more,  signifieth  the  removing  of  those 
things  that  are  shaken,  as  of  things  that  are  made,  that  those  things  which 
cannot  be  shaken  may  remain. — Hebrews  xii.  27. 

It  is  commonly  believed  among-  Christians  and  non- 
Christians  that  the  pulpit  has  nothing  of  positive  import- 
ance to  tell  men  ;  that,  in  fact,  skepticism  has  put  it  on 
the  defence,  so  that  it  has  to  fight  for  its  very  life,  and  has 
no  time  or  power  to  impart  information  on  great  subjects 
which  men  need  to  live  and  die  by.  It  is  further  believed 
by  many  that  religious  beliefs  have  been  substantially  ex- 
ploded, and  that  what  remains  is  not  worth  considering. 
In  this  sermon,  therefore,  I  wish  to  show  that  there  are 
many  most  important  truths  which  have  not  only  not  been 
disturbed  by  the  skepticism  of  our  day,  but  have  rather  been 
confirmed.  Many  things  have  been  shaken  and  removed, 
but  only  that  those  things  which  cannot  be  shaken  might 
remain  more  securely  established,  and  these  unshaken 
truths  furnish  a  deep  and  broad  basis  for  the  church  and 
pulpit. 

The  first  truth  that  has  not  been  seriously  disturbed  is 
the  existence  of  God.  Ideas  of  God  have  been  greatly  al- 
tered. It  is  no  longer  possible  to  think  of  God  as  a  sort  of 
magnified  man,  seated  on  a  golden  throne  outside  of  the 
universe,  who,  with  the  recording  angel  by  His  side  and 
the  Book  of  Remembrance  before  Him,  is  dotting  down 
the  deeds  of  men  for  which  He  will  bring  them  to  judg- 
ment at  the  last  day.  We  must  think  of  Him  as  the  Power 
in  and  back  of  nature,  who  is  everywhere  present  uphold- 
ing-^ guiding,  developing  all  things  by  the  word  of  His 
mfght.  This  much  even  Mr.  Spencer  and  the  most  radical 
skeptics  grant.  But  we  go  further  and  insist  that  God  is 
not  simply  the  Power  that  operates  nature  ;  this  Power  is 


UNSHAKEN  RELIGIOUS  BELIEFS. 


197 


endowed  with  ijitelligence,  infinitely  superior  to  man's 
mind,  no  doubt,  yet  the  great  prototype  of  the  human 
mind.  We  can  no  longer  prove  the  intelligence  of  Deity 
as  the  old  theologians  did  by  appealing  to  the  eye,  for 
instance,  and  arguing  that  He  who  designed  and  produced 
this  wonderful  organ  must  possess  intelligence  similar  to 
that  of  the  optician  who  fashions  an  opera-glass.  There  is 
this  great  difference  between  the  eye  and  the  opera-gkiss  : 
the  one  grew  from  a  little  germ,  the  other  was  manufac- 
tured all  of  a  piece.  Man  is  known  to  be  a  development, 
or  the  product  of  a  long  course  of  development,  and  so  we 
cannot  argue  that  he  was  fashioned  de  novo  out  of  clay  and 
inspired  with  life  and  mind.  But  we  must  go  further  back  ; 
we  must  trace  his  genealogy  back  through  the  lower  ani- 
mals •  nay,  we  must  connect  the  animal  and  the  plant 
kingdoms,  yea,  and  the  very  organic  and  inorganic  king- 
doms of  nature.  We  must  begin  with  the  primeval  chaos, 
and  out  of  the  original  "Stardust"  scattered  throughout 
space  we  must  trace  the  gradual  unfolding  of  this  grand 
and  glorious  universe,  until  at  last  man  stands  forth  "the 
lord  of  creation."  In  short,  we  can  no  longer  confine  our 
attention  to  a  single  piece  of  God's  workmanship  and 
argue  that  He  is  a  great  carpenter  who  turns  out  eyes  and 
men  and  things  as  some  mechanic  would  his  articles  of 
manufacture,  but  we  must  let  our  vision  sweep  backward 
to  the  time  when  chaos  rolled  through  space,  and  darkness 
was  upon  the  face  of  the  deep,  and  doing  this  we  may 
argue  that  the  Power  which  organized  that  misty  cloud 
of  atoms  into  magnificent  globes — suns,  stars  and  planets 
— revolving  around  each  other  in  heavenly  harmony  ;  the 
Power  that  clothed  each  with  its  appropriate  dress  ;  that 
originated  life  and  mind,  and  endowed  the  original  simple 
forms  of  life  and  mind  with  the  power  of  developing  into 
the  wonderful  being  called  man — such  a  Power  cannot  be 
a  mere  force  or  fate,  working  according  to  a  necessity  of 
its  nature,  but  it  must  be  endowed  with  some  sort  of  Intel- 
ligence,  albeit  an  intelligence  infinitely  superior  to  the 
human  mind.  Even  if  it  be  admitted  that  the  siuff  oui  of 
which  the  universe  has  been  evolved  is  eternal,  yet  the 
orderly  process  of  evolution  necessitates  the  assumption  of 
an  evolving  Power  possessing  and  acting  according  to  a 
conscious  purpose.  We  cannot  believe  that  the  beautiful 
development  of  things  has  been  due  to  a  "fortuitous  con- 


jgS  TOPICS  OF  THE  TIMES. 

course  of  atoms. "  It  must  be  attributed  to  an  Almighty 
Will  and  Intelligence.  But  we  do  not  stop  here.  The 
same  line  of  thought  will  force  us  to  predicate  another  im- 
portant attribute  of  God,  viz.,  benevolence.  While  we 
are  often  tempted,  as  we  contemplate  the  enormous  amount 
of  suffering  in  the  world,  to  believe  that  the  Creator  is 
cruel,  yet  when  we  remember  that  out  of  these  very  suffer- 
ings— out  of  this  awful  struggle  for  existence — has  emerged 
this  magnificent  universe  !  When  we  see  that  the  suffer- 
ings of  past  ages  are  not  worthy  to  be  compared  with  the 
glory  that  is  now  revealed  throughout  nature  ;  when  w^e 
reflect  further,  that  the  present  order  of  things  will  go  on 
developing  into  higher  and  higher  forms  of  perfection  and 
grandeur — that  the  very  destruction  of  this  present  world 
will  probably  result  in  a  better  and  a  grander  order  of 
things — that  the  death  of  man  and  of  the  universe  will  be 
a  biVth  into  a  higher  life — we  find  it  impossible  to  believe 
that  God  is  cruel.  We  must  rather  believe  that  God  is 
love — that  whom  He  loveth  He  chasteneth,  and  though 
His  scourging  for  the  present  seems  to  be  grievous,  it  will 
yet  redound  to  the  welfare  of  the  universe.  But  Prof. 
Huxley  reminds  us  just  here  that  this  argument  in  proof 
of  God's  benevolence  is  radically  defective.  "There 
would  be  something  in  this  argument,"  he  says,  "if,  in 
Chinese  fashion,  the  present  generation  could  pay  its  debts 
to  its  ancestors  ;  otherwise  it  is  not  clear  what  compensa- 
tion the  Eohippus  (first  horse)  gets  for  his  sorrows  in  the 
fact,  that,  some  millions  of  years  afterward,  one  of  his 
descendants  wins  the  Derby."  The  answer  to  this  is  very 
simple  :  The  first  horse's  -^iQ^iSUTes  overbalanced  his  pains, 
and  while  he  had  to  make  some  sacrifice  for  the  sake  of 
his^descendants,  it  was  a  sacrifice  for  which  he  was  amply 
compensated  by  the  joys  of  existence.  His  sacrifice  was 
more  of  a  negative  or  privative  nature  than  of  a  positive 
character.  He  was  deprived  of  the  high  development  of 
his  descendant  and  the  consequent  pleasure  of  winning 
the  Derby,  but,  like  the  infants  in  limhus  i7ifantiim,  he  was 
happily  unconscious  of  the  joys  of  the  Derby  paradise, 
■while  his  actual  sufferings  from  being  a  prey  to  bigger  and 
stronger  animals,  who  finally  devoured  him,  were  not  so 
great  as  the  pleasure  he  had  in  feeding  in  green  pastures,  by 
still  waters,  on  the  many  glorious  spring  days  which  he 


UNSHAKEN  RELIGIOUS  BELIEFS.  ^99 

enjoyed.      Hence  we  conclude  that  God  is  both  wise  and 
good — intelHgent  and  benevolent.* 

Secondly.  The  fact  of  the  soul's  existence  and  immor- 
tality has  not  been  disproved.  On  the  contrary,  science 
has  shown  that  there  is  something-  in  man  which  cannot 
be  identified  with  what  we  call  matter — with  the  material 
particles  of  his  brain  or  body.  It  has  further  shown  that 
this  immaterial  something  has  undergone  such  an  enor- 
mous development,  since  it  began  its  progress  away  back 
in  the  ages  and  away  down  the  scale  of  being,  that  it  has 
risen  superior  to  everything  around  it  and  has  become 
capable  of  eternal  life,  and  we  cannot  believe  that  this 
youngest  but  best  child  of  Mother  Nature  will  be  devoured 
by  her  as  a  ferocious  animal  sometimes  devours  its  off- 
spring. We  may  rather  believe  that  those  instinctive  feel- 
ings and  yearnings  of  the  soul  are  destined  to  be  satisfied 
with  the  joys  of  eternal  existence. f 

Third.  The  doctrine  oireirihiitioii  is  undisturbed — is  fully 
confirmed.  If  there  is  one  fact  which  science  proves  be- 
yond question  it  is  that  "whatsoever  a  man  soweth,  that 
shall  he  also  reap  ;  "  if  he  sows  the  wind,  he  will  surely  reap 
the  whirlwind.  "Sow  an  act,  reap  a  habit.  Sow  a  habit, 
reap  a  character.  Sow  a  character,  reap  a  destiny."  This 
awful  fact  is  most  awfully  emphasized  by  science.  In  the 
physical  sphere,  we  trace  the  sufferings  of  individuals  back 
to  the  misdeeds  or  mistakes  of  themselves  or  their  ancestors. 
Are  they  consumptive  .?  Then  they  have  either  inherited 
it  from  persons  who  exposed  themselves  to  physical  con- 
ditions which  produced  this  dread  disease,  or  they  have 
exposed  themselves  to  such  conditions  and  have  reaped 
the  necessary  result.  All  disease  is  due  to  a  violation  of 
natural  laws,  and  the  only  possible  way  to  escape  the  pen- 
alty of  such  transgression  is  to  find  out  what  the  laws  of 
health  are  and  conform  to  them.  In  the  political  and  social 
sphere  it  is  the  same.  Are  we  oppressed  by  corrupt  poli- 
ticians .?  It  is  because  we  have  sacrificed  at  the  polls  prin- 
ciple for  policy,  brains  for  boodle.  We  have  sown  the 
wind  of  ignorance,  greed,  and  selfishness,  and  have  reaped 
the  whirlwind  of  folly,  oppression,  and  corruption.  Are 
the  slums  of  our  great  cities  filled  with  human  brutes  .?     It 

*  Cf.  the  author's  "  Evolution  of  Man  and  Christianity,"  Pt.  II.  Chap, 
vii. 

t  See  above  sermon  on  "Evidence  of  Life  after  Death." 


200  ■  TOPICS  OF  THE  TIMES. 

is  because  they  have  sold  themselves,  body  and  soul,  to  * '  the 
upper  classes,"  who  crack  the  whip  of  the  slave-owner 
over  them.  Are  we  disturbed  by  anarchistic  riots  ?  It  is 
because  the  upper  classes  are  grinding  the  poor  and  the 
ignorant  undei  their  heel  so  terribly  that  they  are  compelled 
to  wince.  We  have  sown  the  firebrands  of  political  and 
social  degradation,  and  it  is  natural  that  they  should  burst 
forth  as  a  volcano  to  consume  us.  So  in  the  moral  and 
religious  sphere.  Is  society  shocked  by  abominable  scan- 
dals .?  Is  virginity  dishonored  and  the  marriage  relation 
abused .?  It  is  because  of  the  low  moral  tone  of  public 
opinion.  It  is  because  money  and  lust  are  our  gods,  and 
character  and  religion  are  despised.  Is  the  Church  power- 
less before  the  attacks  of  skepticism .?  It  is  because  the 
Church  is  unbelieving  and  worldly.  And  so  science  goes 
on  to  trace  every  ill  that  flesh  is  heir  to  back  to  its  cause, 
and  shows  that  if  we  would  be  happy  we  must  seek  the 
truth  and  do  the  right.  "  Whatsoever  a  man  soweth,  that 
shall  he  also  reap,"  both  in  this  world  and  in  the  next.  We 
may  hope  that — 


that- 


Good  may  fall,  at  last,  far  off 

At  last  to  all, 

And  every  winter  change  to  spring  ;  " 

=  Not  one  life  shall  be  destroyed, 
Or  cast  as  rubbish  to  the  void 
When  God  hath  made  the  pile  complete !  " 


But  this  we  know :  death  does  not  destroy  the  soul, 
and  as  long  as  it  exists,  so  long  the  dispositions  it  cherishes 
and  the  habits  it  forms  must  remain  and  produce  their 
natural  effects.  He  that  is  filthy,  let  him  be  fiUhy  still ;  he 
that  is  righteous,  let  him  be  righteous  still !  is  the  awful 
sentence  which  science  as  well  as  Scripture  has  written 
over  the  portal  of  death. 

Fourth.  The  spiritual  supremacy  of  Jesus  Christ  is  more 
securely  and  firmly  established  than  ever.  Note  !  I  do  not 
say  that  the  Divinity  or  Deityship  of  Jesus  is  more  widely 
accepted,  for  this,  I  fear,  is  not  true.  There  is  a  strong, 
a  very  strong  disposition  on  the  part  of  the  ablest  and 
even  some  of  the  devoutest  minds  of  our  time  to  deny 
that  Jesus  was  God's  Son  in  the  old  sense  of  the  word. 
I   think    that    this  is  largely  due  to  the    disproportionate 


UNSHAKEN  RELIGIOUS  BELIEFS.  201 

emphasis  which  has  hitherto  been  laid  upon  this  article 
of  the  faith,  and  more  especially  to  a  misapprehension 
on  the  part  of  the  popular  mind  of  the  doctrine  of  the  In- 
carnation. Christ  has  been  held  up  too  much  as  God 
and  too  little  as  man,  and  the  union  of  His  Humanity  with 
the  Deity  has  been  misconceived  and  misstated  by  many, 
and  therefore  His  Divinity  has  been  and  is  extensively 
doubted.  I  believe  the  day  is  not  distant  when  the  swing- 
of  the  pendulum  of  popular  opinion  away  from  this  faith 
will  be  reversed.  Meanwhile,  we  must  do  all  we  can 
to  make  the  doctrine  of  the  Incarnation  rational  and  ac- 
ceptable, and  there  is  no  better  way  of  doing  it  than  by 
emphasizing  the  spiritual  supremacy  of  Jesus.  However 
much  men  doubt  the  Deityship  of  our  Lord,  one  and  all 
admit  the  transcendence  of  His  character  and  teaching, 
over  the  characters  and  teachings  of  all  other  religious 
sages. 

The  praises  of  Buddha  have  been  most  beautifully  sung 
by  Mr.  Arnold  in  "The  Light  of  Asia."  The  wisdom  of 
the  Vedas — the  Hindu  Bible — has  been  fully  exhibited. 
The  merits  of  the  Persian  sage,  Zoroaster,  have  been  amply 
attested.  The  characters  of  Confucius  and  of  Socrates 
have  been  vehemently  eulogized.  But  ask  any  of  the 
scholars  that  are  the  most  deeply  versed  in  this  mystical 
lore,  or  that  have  most  earnestly  studied  the  lives  of  these 
great  and  good  men,  whether  they  prefer  any  one  of  them 
as  a  religious  guide  and  teacher  to  Jesus  of  Nazareth,  and 
not  one  of  them  will  answer  *'Yes."  IngersoU  avows 
"infinite  respect"  for  Jesus.  Renan  declares  that  "He 
will  never  be  surpassed."  Lecky  says  :  "Christianity  has 
given  the  world  an  Ideal  Character  which  through  all  the 
changes  of  eighteen  centuries  has  filled  the  hearts  of  men 
with  an  impassioned  love,  and  has  shown  itself  capable 
of  acting  on  all  ages,  nations,  temperaments  and  condi- 
tions ;  has  not  only  been  the  highest  pattern  of  virtue,  but 
the  highest  incentive  to  its  practice ;  and  has  exerted  so 
deep  an  influence  that  it  may  be  truly  said  that  the  simple 
record  of  three  short  years  of  active  life  has  done  more  to 
regenerate  and  soften  mankind  than  all  the  disquisitions 
of  philosophers  and  all  the  exhortations  of  moralists. 
Amid  all  the  sins  and  failings,  amid  all  the  priestcraft, 
the  persecution  and  fanaticism  which  have  defaced  the 
Church,  it  has  preserved  in  the  character  and  example  of 
its  Founder  an  enduring  principle  of  regeneration." 


202  TOPICS  OF  THE  TIMES. 

No  fear,  then,  that  the  spiritual  supremacy  of  Jesus  will 
ever  be  overthrown,  and  those  who  listen  to  such  tributes 
to  our  Lord  from  such  men  as  those  just  quoted  need  not 
doubt  that,  whatever  may  be  the  spasmodic  wanderings  of 
the  human  mind  from  this  great  Spiritual  Magnet,  it  will, 
in  time,  return  to  it,  as  surely  as  the  needle  will  seek  the 
pole  in  spite  of  all  deflections. 

"Lord,  to  whom  shall  we  go  ?  Thou  hast  the  words  of 
eternal  life." 

Jesus  was  never  more  loved,  more  revered,  more  ardently 
worshipped;  He  never  exerted  a  greater  influence  than  He 
does  to-day;  and  if  men  would  quit  insisting  upon  their 
own  theories  about  this  Divine  Character,  and' merely  hold 
Him  up  in  all  His  simphcity,  grandeur  and  spiritual  beauty 
before  men,  all  would  be  drawn  unto  Him  as  their  King 
and  Saviour,  their  Guide  through  life  and  their  Comforter 
in  death. 

Let  me,  therefore,  insist  that  you  do  not  trouble  your- 
selves about  the  theological  speculations  which  any  one 
sets  forth  concerning  Christ's  nature,  but  accept  Him  in 
all  His  simplicity.  If  you  cannot  believe — or  think  you 
cannot  believe  in  His  divinity — then  believe  in  His  spirit- 
ual supremacy,  and  follow  His  example  and  obey  His 
precepts  to  love  God  and  your  fellow-men,  and,  believe 
me,  in  time  His  real  nature  will  burst  upon  you  as  it  did 
upon  doubting  Thomas,  and  you  will  fall  down  before 
Him,  exclaiming  :    "  ]\Iy  Lord  !  and  my  God  !  " 

Fifth.  The  superiority  of  the  Bible  as  a  moral  and  spirit- 
ual text-book,  so  to  speak,  has  been  demonstrated.  Ob- 
serve, again,  I  do  not  say  the  Bible  is  ''inspired,"  for  I 
don't  want  to  confuse  your  mind  or  embarrass  this  discus- 
sion by  raising  the  question  of  inspiration.  Let  us  sup- 
pose, for  the  sake  of  argument,  that  the  Bible  is  simply  a 
book,  and  compare  it  with  other  sacred  books,  such  as 
the  Hindu  Vedas,  the  Chinese  Books  of  Kings,  the  Persian 
Zend-Avesta  or  the  Mohammedan  Koran.  Will  any  one 
familiar  with  all  these  writings  dare  say  that  they  are  equal 
in  spiritual  power  to  the  Old  or  New  Testament .?  Listen 
to  these  remarkable  words  of  Prof.  Huxley  :  "  How  is  the 
religious  feeling,  which  is  the  essential  basis  of  conduct, 
to  be  kept  up  in  the  present  utterly  chaotic  state  of 
opinion,  without  the  use  of  the  Bible?  By  the  study  of 
what  other  book  could  children  be  so  much  humanized. 


UNSHAKEN  RELIGIOUS  BELIEFS.  203 

and  made  to  feel  that  each  figure  in  the  vast  historical 
procession  fills,  like  themselves,  but  a  momentary  space 
in  the  interval  between  two  eternities,  and  earns  the  bless- 
ings or  the  curses  of  all  time  according  to  its  efforts  to  do 
good  and  hate  evil  ?  " 

Again,  he  says  :  "Greatly  to  the  surprise  of  many  of 
my. friends,  I  have  always  advocated  the  reading  of  the 
Bible,  and  the  diffusion  of  the  study  of  that  most  remark- 
able collection  of  books  among  the  people.  Its  teachings 
are  so  infinitely  superior  to  those  of  the  sects,  who  are 
just  as  busy  now  as  the  Pharisees  were  eighteen  hundred 
years  ago,  in  smothering  them  under  the  precepts  of  men  ; 
it  is  so  certain  to  my  mind  that  the  Bible  contains  within 
itself  the  refutation  of  nine-tenths  of  the  mixture  of  sophis- 
tical metaphysics  and  old-world  superstition  which  has 
been  piled  around  it  by  so-called  Christians  of  later  ages  ; 
it  is  so  clear  that  the  only  ready  and  immediate  antidote 
to  the  poison  which  has  been  mixed  with  Christianity,  to 
the  intoxication  and  delusion  of  mankind,  lies  in.  copious 
draughts  from  the  undefiled  spring,  that  I  exercise  the  right 
and  duty  of  free  judgment  on  the  part  of  every  man,  mainly 
for  the  purpose  of  inducing  other  laymen  to  follow  my 
example.*" 

"In  the  eighth  century  B.C."  (he  adds,  in  another  place) 
"in  the  heart  of  a  world  of  idolatrous  polytheists,  the 
Hebrew  prophets  put  forth  a  conception  of  religion  which 
appears  to  me  to  be  as  wonderful  an  inspiration  of  genius 
as  the  art  of  Phidias  or  the  science  of  Aristotle,  'And  what 
doth  the  Lord  require  of  thee,  but  to  do  justly,  and  to  love 
mercy,  and  to  walk  humbly  with  thy  God.? '  (Micah  vi.  8). 
If  any  so-called  religion  takes  away  from  this  great  saying 
of  Micah,  I  think  it  wantonly  mutilates  ;  while  if  it  adds 
thereto,  I  think  it  obscures  the  perfect  ideal  of  religion." 

"This  collection  of  books,  the  Bible,"  said  that  great 
freethinker,  Theodore  Parker,  "has  taken  such  hold  on 
the  world  as  no  other.  The  literature  of  Greece,  which 
goes  up  like  incense  from  that  land  of  temples  and  heroic 
deeds,  has  not  half  the  influence  of  this  book.  It  goes 
equally  to  the  cottage  of  the  plain  man  and  the  palace  of 
the  king.  It  is  woven  into  the  literature  of  the  scholar  and 
colors  the  talk  of  the  streets." 

Prof  Max  Miiller,  one  of  the  greatest  Sanskrit  scholars, 
and  one  of  the  freest  of  the  freethinkers,  in  all  his  enthu- 


204  TOPICS  OF  THE  TIMES. 

siasm  for  Indian  literature,  never  for  a  moment  places  it 
above  the  Bible.  On  the  contrary,  he  gives  to  the  Bible 
the  first  place  among  sacred  books,  and  to  Christ  the 
throne  of  the  spiritual  kingdom.  Indeed,  I  know  of  no 
really  profound  scholar  who  does  not  do  this.  The 
hymns  of  the  Veda  may  be  beautiful,  but  the  Psalms  of 
David  are  more  beautiful.  The  wisdom  of  Confucius 
may  have  been  great,  but  the  wisdom  of  Solomon  and  Job 
was  greater.  The  conceptions  of  the  Zend-Avesta  may 
have  been  lofty,  but  the  conceptions  of  Isaiah  and  Paul 
are  loftier.  Buddha  may  have  been  "  The  Light  of  Asia," 
that  is,  the  Eastern  part  of  Asia,  but  Jesus  Christ  is  the 
Light  of  the  World  !  And,  therefore,  while  we  cheerfully 
accord  to  all  these  good  men  and  their  profound  teachings 
all  honor  due  unto  them,  a  Greater  than  they  is  here.  The 
Bible  contains  all  the  truths  found  in  the  sacred  books  of 
Persia,  India,  and  China  combined.  As  Christ  is  the  Uni- 
versal Man,  so  it  is  the  Universal  Book.  It  speaks  to  our 
souls!  It  satisfies  our  deep  spiritual  yearnings  as  no  other 
book  can.  It  inspired  the  soul-stirring  "Confessions"  of 
St.  Augustine,  the  immortal  "  Imitation,"  of  Thomas  ^ 
Kempis,  and  the  "Spiritual  Letters"  of  Fenelon.  It  fired 
the  soul  of  Milton  and  Shakespeare.  Its  philosophy, 
morality,  and  religion  are  the  very  warp  and  woof  of 
modern  civilization,  and,  although  it  has  been  subjected, 
during  the  last  half  century,  to  a  criticism  which  would 
have  destroyed  a  book  less  divine,  it  has  passed  through 
the  fire  essentially  unscathed,  and  stands  forth  to-day  the 
Book  of  books.  Care  not,  then,  my  friends,  for  the  so-called 
"  mistakes  of  Moses"  or  of  Paul  ;  trouble  not  yourselves 
about  Joshua's  stopping  the  sun  or  the  fish's  swallowing 
Jonah.  Be  not  disturbed  if  the  stories  of  some  miracles  be 
shown  to  be  false,  or  merely  the  record  of  natural  events. 
These  stories  do  not  constitute  the  real  essence  of  the  Bible, 
and  you  may  give  them  all  up,  if  necessary,  or  accept 
them  merely  as  poetical  yet  instructive  legends,  and  not 
lose  one  atom  of  the  real  spiritual  truth  that  runs,  Hke  a 
gold  mine,  through  the  Scriptures  from  Genesis  to  Revela- 
tion. Let  Mr.  Moody's  words,  "  I  know  that  the  Bible 
is  mspired,  because  it  inspires  me,"  be  your  practical 
theory  of  inspiration,  and  let  all  the  theories  of  the  schools 
go  to  the  winds,  as  you  search  the  Scriptures  to  find  in 
them  the  words  of  eternal  life,  and  the  witness  to  Him 
who  is  "  the  Way,  the  Truth  and  the  Life." 


UNSHAKEN  RELIGIOUS  BELIEFS.  205 

Finally,  at  least  one  half  of  the  Gospel  has  not  been 
disturbed,  but  rather  emphasized  by  modern  skepticism. 
"  Thou  shalt  love  thy  neighbor  as  thyself"  is  as  true 
to-day  as  when  the  command  was  first  given,  and  this  is 
one  half  of  the  Law  and  the  Prophets.  And  many  who 
are  indisposed  to  love  God  with  all  their  mind  and  heart 
and  strength — who  refuse  to  fulfil  the  other  half  of  the 
Gospel-Law,  are  most  ready  to  love  their  fellow-men,  and 
do  unto  them  as  they  would  be  done  by.  Indeed,  there 
is  what  is  called  the  "Religion  of  Humanity  "  whose  God  is 
the  human  race.  The  idea  of  Humanity  takes  the  place 
of  they^zc/  of  the  Divine  Christ.  Of  course,  it  is  Humanity 
stripped  of  all  its  many  myriad  imperfections  and  corrup- 
tions— an  ideal  Humanity.  But  while  we  prefer  the  ideal 
of  Humanity  as  it  is  perfectly  realized  in  Jesus  Christ,  yet 
this  fantastical  form  of  relis^ion  so-called  shows  what  a 
deep  hold  the  humanitarian  principle  has  upon  the  modern 
mind  and  heart.  Heaven  knows  there  is  little  enough 
love  in  this  world  even  now,  and  often  we  are  tempted  to 
think  that  there  is  no  love — that  selfishness  is  our  god. 
But  sober  thought  must  convince  us  that,  despite  all  ap- 
pearances to  the  contrary,  the  Golden  Rule  is  being  slowly 
but  surely  practiced  more  and  more.  Even  where  it  is 
not  practiced,  it  is  theoretically  admitted  to  be  the  true 
rule  of  conduct — the  summary  of  all  practical  religion. 
While  many  still  think  that  religion  consists  in  belief  in  a 
set  of  doctrines  about  God  and  the  Bible  and  Christ  and 
the  future  life,  the  world  at  large  is  beginning  to  learn  that 
pure  religion  and  undefiled  before  God  and  the  Father  is 
this  :  to  visit  the  fatherless  and  the  widows  and  all  suffer- 
ers in  their  affliction,  and  relieve  them,  if  possible,  and  to 
keep  oneself  unspotted  from  sin — a  violation  of  the  moral 
Law  written  on  the  fleshy  tables  of  the  heart  as  well 
as  in  the  Decalogue  and  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount.  The 
Church  is  beginning  to  realize  that  Jesus  came  to  save 
His  people  from  their  sins  in  this  world ;  that  the  primary 
object  of  the  Church  is  the  regeneration  of  society  as  a 
whole  ;  that  the  very  best  way  to  prepare  men  for  the 
next  life  is  to  make  them  live  better  lives  in  this.  In  short, 
it  is  beginning  to  deal  less  with  dogma  and  more  with 
Ife;  less  with  ihefiifure  and  more  with  the  present ;  less 
in  fear  and  more  in  love  ;  less  with  the  devil  and  more  with 
ma?i.     And  as  this  blessed  change  goes  on   increasing  in 


2o6  TOPICS  OF  THE  TIMES, 

depth  and  width  it  will  be  more  and  more  seen  that  the 
Church  is  established  upon  a  permanent  foundation — a 
foundation  against  which  even  the  gates  of  hell  shall  not 
prevail,  viz.,  the  spiritual  and  moral  necessities  of  human 
nature.  Even  if  it  be  admitted,  therefore  (but  it  is  not  ad- 
mitted), that  the  docti'inal  foundation  of  Christianity  has 
been  sapped  by  skepticism,  yet  its  practical  basis  is  un- 
touched. Nay,  it  may  be  considered  to  be  the  more 
securely  established  the  more  it  is  seen  to  rest  not  on  a 
doctrinal  basis  but  upon  a  personal  life — the  life  of  Jesus 
as  realized  in  His  disciples.  Prof  Max  Miiller  truly  says  : 
"  If  Christianity  is  to  retain  its  hold  on  Europe  and 
America,  if  it  is  to  conquer  in  the  Holy  War  of  the  future, 
it  must  throw  off  its  heavy  armor,  its  coat  of  mail,  and 
face  the  world  like  David,  with  his  staff,  his  stones  and 
his  sling.  We  want  less  of  creeds,  but  more  of  trust ;  less 
of  ceremony,  but  more  of  work  ;  less  of  solemnity,  but 
more  of  genial  honesty  ;  less  of  doctrine,  but  more  of 
love.  There  is  a  faith,  as  small  as  a  grain  of  mustard  seed, 
but  that  grain  alone  can  move  mountains,  and,  more  than 
that,  it  can  move  hearts.  Whatever  the  world  may  say  of 
us,  of  us  of  little  faith,  let  us  remember  that  there  was  One 
who  accepted  the  offering  of  the  poor  widow.  She  threw 
in  but  two  mites,  but  that  was  all  she  had,  even  all  her 
living." 

Therefore,  my  friends,  if  you  think  that  skepticism  has 
reduced  the  faith  to  a  few  mites,  remember  that  those 
mites  are  mighty.  They  are  God,  the  Soul,  Retribution, 
Christ,  the  Bible,  and  Love  :  and  armed  with  these  the  very 
gates  of  hell  shall  not  prevail  against  us. 


SHOULD   WE  HAVE  CREEDS?  207 


SERMON  IX. 

SHOULD  WE  HAVE  C  S  ? 

Text: — Then  he  brought  them  out,  and  said,  Sirs,  what  must  I  do  to  be 
saved  ?  And  they  said,  Believe  on  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  and  thou  shalt 
be  saved,  and  thy  house. — Acts  xvi.  30-31. 

There  is  a  false  liberalism,  and  there  is  a  true  liberalism. 
There  are  many  people  who  would  say  of  the  Church,  as 
the  Irishman  said  of  the  Government,  it  matters  not  about 
the  truth  of  a  belief,  it  is  held  by  the  Church,  and  "I'm 
agin  the  Church."  They  glory  in  having  no  creed,  in 
calling  themselves  "  infidels  "  or  "liberals  "  ;  and  yet  these 
same  people  are  often  the  most  illiberal  dogmatists  and 
believe  the  greatest  absurdities.  They  disbelieve  in  God, 
but  they  believe  that  matter  produces  everything.  They 
reject  the  soul,  but  they  accept  the  brain  as  the  cause  of 
thought  They  refuse  to  call  Christ  "  Master,"  but  eulogize 
Buddha  to  the  skies.  They  ridicule  Christianity,  but  they 
laud  Mohammedanism.  They  are  "  agin  the  Church,"  but 
they  are  for  ail  sorts  of  vagaries  and  absurdities.  Such 
people  are  a  weariness  to  the  flesh,  and  I  constantly  meet 
them,  and  because  I  try  to  be  truly  liberal  and  reasonable, 
they  fancy  that  I  must  accept  all  the  trash  that  they  accept 
True  liberalism  searches  freely  and  fearlessly  for  truth,  and 
acknowledges  it  wherever  it  exists.  It  bows  before  no 
man-made  God,  but  it  worships  the  Creator  of  all  things. 
It  pierces  beneath  the  material  shell  of  things,  and  finds 
the  inward,  spiritual  kernel.  It  adores  Christ,  while  reject- 
ing the  irrational  theories  that  men  have  promulgated  about 
Him.  It  admits  the  defects  of  popular  Christianity,  but 
attributes  them  to  human  nature,  not  to  the  Founder  of 
Christianity  or  His  teachings.  It  recognizes  scientific, 
historical  and  even  moral  imperfections  in  the  Bible,  but 
it    also  considers  it  the    Pook  of  books,    the    most  macf- 


2o8  TOPICS  OF  THE   TIMES. 

nificent  and  wonderful  piece  of  sacred  literature  ever 
published.  It  sees  the  abuses  of  ecclesiasticism,  but  it  has 
no  objection  to  creeds,  just  because  they  are  creeds. 
In  short,  it  is  not  *'agin  the  Church,"  simply  because  the 
Church  has  made  many  mistakes  and  committed  many 
crimes,  and  hence  you  need  not  expect  in  this  sermon  any 
unmeasured  denunciation  of  creeds,  although  you  may 
hear  a  somewhat  different  view  of  them  advocated  from 
that  popularly  held. 

First  of  all,  creeds  are  not  only  permissible ;  they  are  a 
necessity.  Every  man  has  a  creed.  It  is  utterly  impos- 
sible for  him  to  live  without  a  creed,  for  a  creed  is  simply 
another  name  for  "belief,"  and  every  man  believes  some- 
thing-— unless  he  is  a  lunatic.  The  man  who  denies  the 
existence  of  God  believes  in  nature — holds  that  matter 
and  its  forces  produce  all  things.  If  he  is  an  educated 
man,  he  knows  that  science  reveals  the  fact  that  once  this 
world  was  not ;  it  existed  simply  as  a  vast  cloud  of  atoms 
scattered  throughout  space,  and  in  accounting  for  the  rise 
of  this  magnificent  universe  out  of  that  chaos,  he  must 
either  believe  in  an  Intelligent  Being,  who  started  and 
guided  the  development,  or  he  must  endow  the  material 
particles  with  the  power  and  intelligence  sufficient  for  this 
purpose,  and  so  while  he  smashes  with  one  hand  the  theo- 
logical idol,  he  erects  with  the  other,  the  scientific  Deity. 
He  may  reject  the  existence  of  the  soul,  but  if  he  pro- 
foundly studies  the  brain  and  its  operations  he  will  be 
convinced  that  the  brain  is  not  all  or  the  chief  part  of  man; 
that  it  does  not  produce  thought;  that  there  is  an  immaterial 
and  impalpable  something,  a  mysterious  unseen  musician 
back  of  the  scenes  manipulating  this  organ,  and  producing 
the  music  of  the  soul.  He  may  reject  the  popular  theo- 
logical doctrine  about  Christ's  origin,  nature  and  mission, 
but  if  he  will  study  fully  and  widely  religious  history,  he 
will  find  that  no  other  person  ever  lived  who  is  so  worthy 
of  the  high  title,  **Son  of  God  "  and  ''Saviour  of  IMen." 
He  may  fling  his  Bible  on  the  floor  and  trample  it  under 
foot,  but,  like  many  another  silly  fanatic,  if  he  happens  to 
pick  up  a  torn  leaf  of  it  and  compares  it  with  any  other 
sacred  book,  he  will  find  more  divine  truth  m  it  than  in  all 
the  tomes  beside.  And  so  I  say,  a  creed  of  some  sort  is 
^ibsolutely  necessary,  and  every  man  has  one;  the  only 


SHOULD   WE  HAVE  CREEDS?  209 

question  is — What  kind  of  creed  shall  it  be  ?     That  depends 
entirely  on  what  is  the  object  of  the  creed. 

Second,  a  creed  is  a  means  to  an  end — not  an  end  in 
itself,  as  so  many  suppose.  It  is  because  the  object  o.f 
creeds  is  so  generally  misunderstood,  that  the  Church  is 
split  up  into  a  hundred  warring-  sects.  The  Church  is  not 
like  a  protectionist  club.  It  does  not  stand  for  one  idea, 
but  for  the  whole  truth.  It  is  not  intended  to  be  exclusive, 
but  inclusive.  Its  great  object  is  the  production  of  moral  and 
religious  character  by  the  infusion,  so  to  speak,  of  the  Christ's 
life  into  our  lives — the  production  of  Christ-like  souls  ;  and 
whatever  tends  to  draw  men  unto  Christ  and  produce 
righteousness  should  be  inserted  in  its  creed  ;  and  what- 
ever does  not  tend  to  this  result  should  be  excluded  from 
its^  creed,  however  much  it  might  be  allowed  as  matter  of 
opinion.  This  is  what  Christ  taught.  He  did  not  say  to 
men — Accept  this  or  that  dogma,  but  simply,  "Follow 
■  Me."  This  is  what  Paul  and  Barnabas  told  the  Philippian 
jailor — "Believe  on  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  and  thou  shalt 
be  saved." 

The  object  of  a  creed  is  the  salvation  of  the  soul,  by 
which  I  do  not  mean  salvation  as  it  is  taught  by  the  pop- 
ular theology.  This  teaches  that  salvation  means  escape 
from  a  distant  hell,  but  the  New  Testament  says  that  Jesus 
came  to  save  His  people  from  their  sins.  The  object  of  a 
creed,  therefore,  is  salvation  of  the  believer  from  sin  here 
and  now.  If  he  is  a  har,  he  must  quit  lying.  If  he  is  a 
thief,  he  must  stop  stealing.  If  he  is  an  adulterer,  he  must 
become  chaste,  for  adulterers  and  whoremongers  God  will 
judge  and  will  visit  them  with  swift  vengeance  in  this 
life  as  well  as  in  the  next.  If  he  is  profane,  he  must 
become  reverent  If  he  is  cruel,  he  must  become  kind.  If 
he  is  selfish,  he  must  become  unselfish.  If  he  is  cov- 
etous, he  must  become  benevolent  and  beneficent.  If 
he  is  a  glutton,  he  must  become  temperate.  These  are 
the  fruits  of  faith,  and  no  creed  is  worthy  of  its  name 
unless  it  produce  these  results,  and  this  is  what  the  Apos- 
tles meant  when  they  told  the  jailor  to  believe  on  the 
Lord  Jesus  Christ  and  he  would  be  saved.  He  had  been 
cruel — had  shut  them  in  the  inner  prison — but  if  he  would 
believe  on  Jesus  he  could  not  do  such  a  thing.  The 
Apostles  did  not  mean  as  theology  means,  that  the  poor, 
ignorant  jailor  must  believe  some  subtle  theory  of  Christ's 

H 


2IO  TOPICS  OF  THE   TIMES. 

nature  or  atonement.  Such  nonsense  never  entered  their 
minds.  They  meant  by  faith  in  Christ,  just  what  we  mean 
when  we  say,  "  I  beheve  in  this  or  that  person."  If  you 
beheve  in  a  person  you  trust  him,  and  when  he  tells  you 
to  do  anything  you  do  it ;  and  so  if  we  believe  in  Christ 
we  will  obey  Him.  When  He  tells  us  not  to  commit 
murder,  or  a  theft,  or  adultery,  if  we  believe  in  Him,  we 
will  not  do  so.  When  He  commands  us  to  forgive  our 
enemies — to  pray  for  those  who  despise  us  and  spitefully 
use  us — to  do  good  to  our  foes — to  love  our  neighbors 
instead  of  slandering  and  hating  them,  if  we  believe  in 
Him  we  will  obey,  and  if  we  do  not  obey  Him  we  do  not 
believe  in  Him,  even  though  we  pronounce,  with  a  long 
face  and  a  loud  voice  and  a  sanctimonious  air,  all  the 
creeds  in  Christendom,  and  die  at  the  stake  rather  thcin 
give  up  one  jot  or  tittle  of  them.  Some  of  the  most  licen- 
tious men  and  women  that  ever  lived  have  been  the  most 
zealous  in  religious  profession,  and  if  we  could  lift  the  veil 
we  would  see  them  writhing  in  hell  this  moment,  where 
the  worm  of  conscience  dieth  not  and  the  flame  of  memory 
is  not  quenched.  So  I  say  the  object  of  a  creed  is  to  pro- 
duce character,  and  no  creed  and  no  article  of  a  creed  should 
be  insisted  upon  by  the  Church  which  does  not  tend  to  pro- 
duce righteousness.  Oh,  if  men  had  only  acted  on  this 
principle,  how  many  bloody  pages  of  history  would  never 
have  been  written  !  Paul  would  not  have  been  imprisoned 
and  killed.  The  early  Christians,  would  not  have  been 
thrown  to  the  lions  in  the  Roman  amphitheatre.  The  fires 
of  the  Spanish  Inquisition  would  never  have  been  lit. 
Bruno  and  Huss  would  not  have  been  burned  at  the  stake. 
Luther  and  Zwingli  and  Calvin  and  Knox  would  not  have 
been  persecuted.  The  flames  of  Oxford  and  Smithfield 
would  not  have  been  kindled  around  the  bodies  of  God's 
truest  sons.  John  Wesley  and  John  Whitefield  would  not 
have  been  excluded  from  the  Church.  The  Pilgrim  f  athers 
would  not  have  been  driven  from  their  native  land  into  a 
strange  and  inhospitable  country.  The  burning  and  drown- 
ing and  torturing  of  good  men  and  women  for  the  expul- 
sion from  their  bodies  of  imaginary  witches  and  devils 
would  never  have  occurred.  But  instead  of  it  all — instead  of 
the  hateful  spectacle  of  "  religous  war"  and  the  propaga- 
tion of  the  faith  by  the  power  of  the  sword  and  the  fagot 
' — we  should  have  seen  the  armies  of  the  Lord  of  Hosts 


SHOULD   WE  HAVE  CREEDS?  2ll 

quietly  and  peacefully  marching  forward  conquering-  and 
to  conquer,  with  their  eyes  fixed  on  the  blood-stained 
cross,  fit  symbol  of  sacrificing  Love,  flaming  out  in  the 
heavens  above,  with  the  immortal  inscription  upon  it  :  "I 
am  the  Way,  the  Truth  and  the  Life."  "Come  unto  me, 
all  ye  that  labor  and  are  heavy  laden,  and  I  will  give  you 
rest/" 

The  real  object  of  a  creed,  then,  is  to  produce  character, 
and  the  object  of  a  Christian  creed  is  to  produce  Christ- 
like character.  Until  this  great  fact  is  practically  recog- 
nized by  the  Church,  she  will  never  accomplish  the  glorious 
work  the  Master  came  to  do.  He  came  to  save  people 
from  sin,  to  teach  them  to  love  God  as  their  Father,  Himself 
as  their  Brother  and  their  fellow-men  as  themselves.  He 
desired  to  draw  all  men  unto  Himself,  to  have  them  im- 
bibe His  spirit  and  follow  in  His  footsteps.  He  did  not 
require  them  to  believe  any  special  theory  about  the  God- 
head or  His  own  origin  and  nature.  He  asked  Simon 
Peter  the  thrilling  question,  '' Lovesi  thou  me.?"  And 
when  the  Apostle  answered,  "Yea,  Lord,  "He  said,  "Feed 
my  sheep,  feed  my  lambs."  Love  of  Him,  love  of  God, 
love  of  man — that  made  one  a  disciple  of  His — and  that 
was  the  essence  of  the  Gospel  which  St.  Paul  and  the  other 
Apostles  preached.  There  were  persons  in  the  Corinthian 
Church  who  disbelieved  in  the  resurrection,  and  St.  Paul, 
Pharisee  though  he  was,  did  not  excommunicate  them, 
but  in  his  immortal  epistle  argued  the  case  with  them  and 
tried  to  persuade  them  of  the  truth  of  the  doctrine — but  he 
did  not  insist  upon  it  as  an  article  of  faith  which  must 
be  accepted  on  pain  of  forfeiture  of  Church  fellowship. 
Neither  St.  Paul  nor  any  of  the  Apostles  had  any  other 
creed  than  that  mentioned  in  the  text — a  simple  childlike 
faith  in  Jesus — in  his  personal  life.  I  know,  of  course, 
that  he  argues  in  his  epistles  to  show  that  Christ  was  God's 
Son,  that  in  Him  dwelt  all  the  fulness  of  the  Godhead 
bodily,  but  he  was  then  speaking  as  a  teacher  ;  he  was  not 
insisting  upon  belief  in  a  special  view  of  Christ  as  neces- 
sary to  Church  fellowship.  When  this  question  arose — • 
when  men  asked  the  great  question — What  must  I  do  to 
be  saved.?  he  always  answered,  "Believe  on  the  Lord 
Jesus  Christ — trust  in  Him — follow  in  His  footsteps — do 
His  will,  and  thou  shalt  be  saved." 

It  is  because  the  Churches  have  departed  from  this  simple 


2 1 2  TOPICS  OF  THE  TIMES. 

creed — it  is  because  they  have  built  round  the  adorable 
Person  of  Christ  hedges  of  human  inventions — that  Chris- 
tendom is  to-day  split  up  into  a  thousand  and  one  sects 
that  bite  and  tear  each  other  like  ferocious  wild  beasts. 
Not  until  Christians  practically  believe  and  admit  that  the 
Church  rests  upon  the  life  and  personal  character  of  Jesus 
— that  every  one  who  wishes  to  follow  in  his  steps — every 
one  who  loves  Him  and  would  fain  do  Him  service  is  a 
real  disciple  of  the  Master— not  mwWX  conduct  \?,  made  the 
basis  of  Church  communion  will  the  Gospel  run  and  be 
glorified  and  the  kingdoms  of  this  world  become  the  king- 
doms of  our  God  and  of  His  Christ.  And — blessed  fact ! 
— this  truth  is  gradually  becoming  clearer  and  clearer  to 
men's  minds  and  being  more  and  more  accepted.  What- 
ever bigotry  and  intolerance  may  remain  among  profes- 
sional theologians,  the  great  body  of  Christians  are  begin- 
ning to  realize  that  theories  of  the  Godhead,  the  Incarnation, 
atonement,  inspiration  and  so  on,  are  all  the  speculations 
of  fallible  human  reason,  and  as  such  are  not  worth  quar- 
reling over.  They  are  learning  more  and  more  clearly 
that  charity  or  love  is  ''the  greatest  thing  in  the  world" — 
that  though  we  may  speak  with  the  tongues  of  angels,  and 
have  the  gift  of  prophecy,  and  understand  all  mysteries,  and 
have  all  faith,  and  give  all  our  goods  to  the  poor,  and  even 
submit  our  bodies  to  be  burned,  and  have  not  charity,  it 
profiteth  nothing. 

Even  the  professional  theologian  when  he  talks  to  men 
directly  about  their  spiritual  welfare — about  following  Christ 
— lays  aside  his  darling  theories.  If  the  man  objects  to 
the  dogma  of  the  Trinity,  he  is  told  that  ''nobody  under- 
stands it.'"  If  he  says  he  does  not  believe  that  a  miracle 
ever  happened,  nine  times  out  of  ten  he  is  assured  that 
"nobody  beh'eves  in  miracles  in  the  old  sense  of  the 
word" — which  means  that  all  miracles  are  explained  as 
wonderful  but  natural  events.  If  he  objects  to  the  doctrine 
of  endless  punishment,  he  is  told  that  faith  in  it  is  not 
necessary  to  salvation  or  Church  fellowship.  When,  then, 
he  asks.  What  must  I  believe  and  do  to  be  saved.'*  He 
gets  the  true  reply,  "Believe  on  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ, 
love  Him,  serve  Him,  and  thou  shalt  be  saved."  And  so, 
thank  God,  creed-worship  is  rapidly  passing  away,  and 
Christ-worship  is  taking  its  place.  It  is  not  going  quite 
as  fast  as  some  of  us  would  have  it  go,  but  it  is  going,  and 


SHOULD  WE  HAVE  CREEDS? 


i\% 


ere  the  next  generation  comes  and  goes,  Creed-worship 
will  be  overthrowii,  and  all  Christendom  will  wonder  at 
our  darkness  and  bigotry  and  folly. 

But  while  I  hold  that  the  great  object  of  a  creed  is  to 
produce  character,  I  freely  admit  that  a  secondary  object 
is  to  teach  those  who  have  not  time  for  special  study  of 
the  great  problems  of  Being  such  truths  as  seem  most 
probable  and  rational.  In  a  large  sense,  therefore,  the 
whole  Bible  is  a  creed,  and  is  so  regarded  by  the  Church, 
its  supremacy  over  all  formulated  statements  of  doctrine 
having  always  been  asserted,  especially  since  the  great 
Reformation  of  the  sixteenth  century.  But  we  are  here 
concerned  with  those  doctrinal  formulas  which  are  sup- 
posed to  be  taken  out  of  the  Scriptures,  such  as  the  Apos- 
tles' and  Nicene  Creeds  ;  the  various  decisions  on  doctrinal 
subjects  put  forth  by  Church  Councils,  such  as  the  decrees 
of  the  Roman  Church  in  the  Council  of  Trent,  the  Vatican 
and  so  on,  and  the  Confessions  of  Faith  formulated  by  the 
reformed  Churches.  All  these  creeds  or  confessions  are 
more  or  less  instructive,  and  there  can  be  no  possible 
objection  to  such  statements  of  doctrine,  provided  that  it 
always  be  remembered  that  they  are  mere  human  specula- 
tions, man-made  theories  about  God  and  Christ  and  human 
nature  and  destiny  which  are  open  to  free  criticism  and 
subject  to  revision  as  new  light  breaks  upon  the  great  sub- 
jects with  which  they  deal.  But  just  here  lie.s  the  dif- 
ficulty. Religious  creeds  more  than  any  other  documents 
become  sacred  and  venerable  by  age  and  use.  It  is  really 
marvelous  how  they  entrench  themselves  in  the  affections 
of  believers  until  it  becomes  impossible  to  touch  them 
without  hurting  the  feelings  and  rousing  the  wrath  of  the 
faithful.  The  man  who  dares  question  what  the  fathers 
have  believed  is  at  once  accused  of  "presumption,"  "sac- 
rilege," *' blasphemy, "  "infidelity,"  and  Heaven  knows 
what  not. 

It  is  easy,  too,  for  a  thoughtful  mind  to  understand  this. 
Not  only  do  creeds  grow  sacred  by  age  and  use,  but  other 
things  do  also.  Thus  the  old  oak  tree  that  stands  in  the  an- 
cestral yard,  under  whose  spreading  boughs  our  forefathers 
played  as  children,  is  dear  to  our  hearts,  and  when  the 
cruel  lightning  strikes  it,  and  its  bare  and  gnarled  limbs 
point  heavenward,  we  feel  a  sorrow  and  pity  for  it  akin  to 
that  over  the  bones  of  a  departed  relative.     The  old  home- 


214  TOPICS  OF  THE   TIMES. 

Stead,  with  its  hedge-rows  planted  by  our  grandfathers,  its 
forests  in  which  they  hunted  the  squirrel  and  the  deer,  the 
fields  over  which  they  chased  the  fox  and  the  hare,  the 
farmhouse  through  whose  halls  their  venerable  feet  trod, 
and  in  whose  rooms  echoed  their  merry  laughter,  their 
songs  of  joy  or  their  sighs  of  grief— all  these  are  sacred  to 
us.  But,  above  all,  the  old  church  on  the  village  green, 
whose  walls  have  trembled  with  the  eloquence  of  silent 
lips,  or  reverberated  with  the  stentorian  sounds  of  those 
who  lifted  up  their  voices  in  psalm  and  hymn — the  old 
church,  where  the  Spirit  of  God  nestled  down  as  a  celestial 
dove  upon  the  penitent  heads  of  the  fathers  as  they  gathered 
around  the  Lord's  Table,  or  knelt  before  the  great  White 
Throne — the  old  church  is  too  consecrated  a  building  to 
be  torn  down  and  replaced  by  a  modern  edifice.  We  all 
know  what  energy  and  tact  are  necessary  to  overcome  such 
feelings  when  it  is  proposed  to  build  a  new  church  on  the 
site  of  an  old  one.  Many  people  in  the  parish  will  often 
refuse  to  contribute  to  the  building  of  a  new  church,  but 
will  gladily  give  towards  the  repairing  of  the  old  one. 
Some,  however,  want  as  little  of  the  old  material  taken 
out  as  possible,  and  no  alteration  made  m  the  form  of  build- 
ing or  arrangement  of  furniture  ;  and  the  modern  minister 
with  his  modern  ideas  of  architecture,  and  little  or  no 
reverence  for  the  antique,  finds  many  obstacles  in  the  way 
of  building  up  the  parish  as  he  desires.  So  it  is,  in  a  deeper 
sense,  with  creeds.  We  like  to  feel  that  we  are  using  the 
very  words  and  thinking  the  very  thoughts  the  fathers 
spoke  and  thought.  It  seems  to  unite  the  Past  with  the 
Present  by  a  real  and  living  bond.  We  seem  to  be  stand- 
ing in  the  midst  of  that  cloud  of  witnesses  and  saintly 
souls  who  have  gone  before,  and  from  the  overhanging 
dome  of  heaven  look  down  with  approving  smiles.  I  shall 
never  forget  the  pleasure  I  experienced  when  I  learnt  to 
read  the  Hebrew  and  Greek  Bible.  To  think  that  I  was 
speaking  the  very  words  that  Abraham,  and  Moses,  and 
David,  and  Isaiah,  and  Paul  spoke.  Nay,  perhaps  the  very 
words  which  the  Lord  himself  uttered  by  the  sick  bed  or 
the  bier  !  It  seemed  to  me  that  time  was  annihilated  and  the 
spirits  of  patriarchs,  prophets,  and  apostles  were  holding 
converse  with  me.  But  all  this  is  sentiment — poetry — 
which  cannot  bear  the  test  of  reason.  We  must  subordinate 
feeling  to  fact,    sentiment  to  sense.     The   world  mioves  ; 


SHOULD   WE  HAVE  CREEDS?  215 

human  nature  grows  ;  the  wants  of  the  children  are  not  the 
same  as  the  wants  of  the  fathers.  What  a  terrible  state  of 
thing-s  it  would  be  if  this  were  not  so.  The  world  would 
absolutely  stagnate  and  dry  rot.  We  may,  therefore,  love 
the  old  oak,  but  when  the  snows  and  storms  of  many 
winters  have  beaten  off  its  boughs  and  made  it  unsightly — 
a  mere  cumberer  of  the  ground — it  must  be  hewn  down, 
that  a  more  beautiful  shrub  or  tree  may  take  its  place. 
W^e  may  love  the  old  ancestral  house,  but  its  small  windows 
must  be  enlarged  to  let  in  more  light,  its  big  fireplaces 
must  be  reduced  in  size,  its  creaky  stairways  must  give 
place  to  new  ones  that  will  bear  us  up,  its  halls  must  be 
overhauled,  the  grandfather's  clock  must  give  place  to  a 
modern  chronometer,  the  antique  melodeon,  which  charmed 
the  old  folks  at  home  on  the  long  winter  evenings,  must  be 
put  aside  for  the  Steinwayor  the  Knabe — in  short,  the  Past 
must  surrender  to  the  Present.  The  old  church,  with  its 
brick  or  stone  or  weather-boarded  walls,  and  its  conspic- 
uous absence  of  ail  architectural  beauty,  must  be  replaced 
by  a  beautiful  Gothic  or  other  structure.  The  tuning- 
fork  of  the  musical  director  must  be  superseded  by  the 
grand  organ  and  the  grander  choir.  The  world  moves. 
The  fathers  did  not  speak  the  last  word  on  Art,  Poetry, 
Literature,  Sculpture,  Science,  Philosophy,  Politics  or  Re- 
ligion. Magna  Charta  was  a  grand  document,  but  a 
People's  Constitution  is  grander.  The  Declaration  of  In- 
dependence was  a  noble  instrument,  but  it  did  not  say  the 
last  word  on  Liberty.  Moses  was  a  great  lawgiver,  but 
Christ  was  a  greater.  Isaiah  was  a  great  preacher,  but 
Paul  was  a  greater.  Chrysostom  and  Augustine  were 
brilliant  orators  and  profound  theologians  ;  Luther,  Calvin, 
Zwingli  and  Cranmer  were  great  Reformers,  but  they  were 
not  omniscient.  The  Nicene  Council  was  a  glorious  assem- 
bly, but  it  was  not  infallible.  The  Fathers  must  be  re- 
spected but  not  idolized.  We  are  unworthy  children  if  we 
know  no  more  than  they  did.  We  should  never  have  been 
born,  if  we  are  not  to  add  anything  to  their  acquisitions, 
and  so  we  must  not  be  fettered  by  sentiment,  or  chained 
hand  and  foot  by  a  false  reverence  for  the  dead  and  the 
opinions  of  the  dead.  We  honor  them  far  more  by  striving 
to  develop  their  mighty  thoughts  and  classify  and  solve 
the  mysteries  that  puzzled  them,  than  we  do  by  blindly 
submitting  to   their  ipse  dixit.     We  want  no  iconoclasm 


2i6  TOPICS  OF  THE  TIMES. 

merely  for  the  sake  of  iconoclasm,  but  we  want  the  old 
spiritual  tabernacle  renovated  and  renewed.  And,  thank 
Heaven  !  the  world  is  beginning  to  realize  the  truth  of 
this.  ]Men  are  seeing  more  and  more  the  absurdity  of 
supposing  that  Science,  Philosophy,  Politics,  Art,  and  all 
other  departments  of  life  and  thought  should  be  developed 
and  theology  should  stand  still  The  Protestant  part  of 
Christendom,  and  even  the  Roman  Church,  to  some  extent, 
recognize  this  absurdity.  Our  formulas  contain  within 
themselves  provisions  for  their  restatement  and  recon- 
struction, just  as  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  con- 
tains an  article  providing  for  amendments  to  it,  or  altera- 
tions in  it ;  but  owing  to  the  feelings  just  mentioned  most 
people  are  strongly  averse  to  any  alterations  in  theological 
dogmas.  And,  after  all,  this  conservatism,  while  very 
annoying  to  many  of  us,  is  a  good  thing  and  serves  a  good 
purpose,  as  it  checks  and  sobers  what  might  otherwise  be 
rash  and  dangerous  progress.  The  law  of  antagonism, 
of  opposites,  of  attraction  and  repulsion,  of  statics  and 
dynamics,  operates  in  the  religious  as  well  as  in  the  social 
and  material  sphere  ;  and  out  ot  the  conflict  will  arise  a 
new  and  better  faith  which,  while  it  does  not  turn  its  back 
on  the  Past,  turns  at  least  one  eye  to  the  rising  sun — a  faith 
that  faces  both  ways  and  sweeps  the  whole  spiritual 
horizon,  taking  in  and  absorbing  every  ray  of  truth. 

Life  and  Teaching — that  is  the  twofold  object  of  creeds. 
"Believe  on  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ;  "  worship  His  Spirit 
and  absorb  His  life  ;  and  thou  shalt  be  saved  from  sin  here 
and  hell  hereafter.  ''Search  the  Scriptures  "  for  yourself, 
freely  and  thoroughly  as  Paul  did.  "Stand  fast  in  the 
liberty  wherewith  Christ  hath  made  you  free  !  "  Refuse  not 
truth  come  whence  it  may.  Fix  your  eye  on  the  coming 
dawn  and  travel  in  the  course  of  the  rising  sun.  The 
Christ  that  is  to  be  is  being  rapidly  rung  in  !  We  hear  the 
chimes  of  the  morning  bells  sounding  across  the  hills  and 
valleys  !  We  hear  the  song  of  the  angels  that  broke  o'er  the 
heights  of  Bethlehem  on  that  primal  Christmas  day.  We 
behold  the  Star  ot  Wisdom  moving  towards  the  manger. 
We  see  the  wise  men  marching  in  goodly  array  to  offer 
their  gold,  frankincense,  and  myrrh  at  the  holy  shrine  !  We, 
therefore,  exclaim  in  rapture,  ''  Glory  to  God  in  the 
Highest,  and  on  earth,  peace,  good  will  to  men  !"  For 
unto  us  is  born  again  in  the  spiritual  city  of  David  a  Saviour, 


SHOULD   WE  HAVE  CREEDS?  217 

who  is  Christ  the  Lord,  who  is  set  for  the  rise  and  fall  of 
many  among  the  sons  of  men,  in  whom  whosoever  shall 
believe  shall  be  saved  and  enter  in  through  the  gates  into 
the  eternal  city  of  God  !   Amen. 


21 8  TOPICS  OF  THE  TIMES, 


THE  REAL  RIGHTS  OF  WOMAN. 

Text  : — And  Deborah,  a  prophetess,  the  wife  of  Lapidoth,  she  judged 
Israel  at  that  time. — Judges  iv.  4, 

Deborah  is  one  of  the  most  remarkable  characters  in 
history,  and  the  age  in  which  she  lived  was  a  peculiar  age 
— a  transitional  period  for  Israel — when  the  nation  was 
passing  from  a  lawless  condition  into  that  of  monarchy. 
"Judges,"  military  rulers,  who  were  raised  to  power  by 
circumstances  and  deeds  of  prowess,  governed  the  nation, 
and  it  was  constantly  invaded  by  surrounding  enemies. 
At  this  particular  time,  "the  power  of  the  northern  kings," 
says  Dean  Stanley,  "  which  Joshua  had  broken  down  at  the 
waters  of  Merom,  revived  under  a  second  Jabin,  king  of 
Hazor.  The  formidable  chariots  overran  the  territories  of 
the  adjacent  tribes.  The  whole  country  was  disorganized 
with  terror.  The  obscure  tortuous  paths  became  the  only 
means  of  communication.  As  long  afterwards,  in  the 
time  of  Saul,  regular  weapons  disappeared  from  the  op- 
pressed population.  "There  was  not  a  spear  or  shield 
seen  among  forty  thousand  in  Israel."  Shamgar  the  son 
of  Anath,  defended  himself  against  the  enemies  of  the 
South  with  a  long  pole  armed  at  the  end  with  a  spike  still 
used  by  the  peasants  of  Palestine.  In  their  general  depres- 
sion, the  national  spirit  was  revived  by  one  whose  appear- 
ance is  full  of  significance.  On  the  heights  of  Ephraim, 
on  the  central  thoroughfare  of  Palestine,  near  the  sanctuary 
of  Bethel,  stood  two  famous  trees  (if  we  may  be  permitted 
to  distinguish  them),  both  in  aftertimes  known  by  the 
same  name.  One  was  "  the  oak-tree,"  or  "  Terebinth  of 
Deborah,"  underneath  which  was  buried,  with  many  tears, 
the  nurse  of  Jacob.  The  other  was  a  solitary  palm,  which, 
in    all    probability,  had   given    its    name    to    an    adjacent 


THE  REAL  RIGHTS  OF  WOMAN. 


219 


sanctuary  Baal-Tamar,  the  ''Sanctuary  of  the  Palm,"  but 
which  was  also  known  in  aftertimes  as  the  Palm-tree  of 
Deborah.  Under  this  palm,  as  Saul  afterwards  under  the 
pomegranate  of  Mig-ron,  as  St.  Louis  under  the  oak-tree  of 
Vincennes,  dwelt  Deborah  the  wife  of  Lapidoth,  to  whom 
the  sons  of  Israel  came  up  to  receive  her  wise  answers. 
She  is  the  magnificent  impersonation  of  the  free  spirit  of 
the  Jewish  people  and  of  Jewish  life.  On  the  coins,  of  the 
Roman  Empire,  Judaea  is  represented  as  a  woman  seated 
under  a  palm-tree  captive  and  weeping.  It  is  a  contrast 
of  that  figure  which  will  best  place  before  us  the  character 
of  Deborah.  It  is  the  same  Judaean  palm,  under  whose 
shadow  she  sits,  but  not  with  downcast  eyes  and  folded 
hands,  and  extinguished  hopes, — with  all  the  fire  of  faith 
and  energy,  eager  for  the  battle,  confident  of  victory.  Like 
the  German  prophetess  who  roused  her  people  against  the 
invaders  from  Rome,  like  the  simple  peasant  girl  (Joan  of 
Arc),  who  by  communing  with  mysterious  angels'  voices, 
roused  the  French  nation  against  the  English  dominion, 
when  princes  and  statesmen  had  well-nigh  given  up  the 
cause — so  the  heads  of  Israel  "  ceased  and  ceased  until  that 
she,  Deborah,  arose,  that  she  arose,  a  mother  in  Israel." 
Her  appearance  was  like  a  new  epoch.  They  chose  new 
chiefs  that  came  as  new  gods  among  them.  It  was  she 
who  turned  her  eyes  and  the  eyes  of  the  nation  to  the 
fitting  leader.  That  leader,  was  "  Barak,"  whose  name 
means  ''Lightning."  His  fame  must  have  been  wide- 
spread to  have  reached  the  prophetess  in  her  remote 
dwelling  at  Bethel.  From  his  native  place,  "  Kedesh- 
Naphtali,  far  up  among  the  mountains  of  the  North,"  she 
summoned  him  to  her  side,  and  delivered  to  him  her  pro- 
phetic command.  He,  as  if  oppressed  by  the  presence  of 
a  loftier  spirit  than  his  own,  refuses  to  act,  unless  she 
were  with  him  to  guide  his  movements,  and  (according  to 
the  Greek  version  of  the  narrative)  to  name  the  very  day 
which  should  be  auspicious  for  his  effort :  "  For  I  know 
not"  (he  said)  "  the  day  on  which  the  Lord  will  send  his 
good  angel  with  me."  She  replies  at  once,  with  the  Heb- 
rew emphasis  :  "  I  will  go,  I  will  go  !  "  but  adds  :  "not- 
withstanding the  journey  that  thou  takest  shall  not  be  for 
thine  honor  ;  for  the  Lord  shall  sell  Sisera  into  the  hand  of 
a  woman."  And  sure  enough  the  greatest  general  and 
the  flower  of  the  Canaanite  soldiery  were  defeated  by  the 


2  20  TOPICS  OF  THE  TIMES. 

woman  commander.  Here,  then,  we  have  a  woman  who 
is  a  wife,  a  prophetess,  a  ruler  and  a  successful  military 
leader,  and  as  such  her  character  and  history  are  quite 
suggestive  on  the  question  of  the  rights  and  powers  of 
woman. 

I.  The  first  right  that  a  woman  has  is  a  right  to  a  thorough 
education.  It  used  to  be  and  still  is,  to  some  extent, 
believed  that  woman  is  intellectually  inferior  to  man. 
The  world  has  been  wont  to  reply  as  did  a  gentleman  to 
Mrs.  Sarah  Bolton,  a  writer  on  this  subject,  who,  when 
asked  if  the  University  of  Berlin  would  probably  ever  admit 
women,  said,  "  No,  madam.  If  that  should  happen, 
every  student  would  leave  immediately.  Besides,  how 
can  a  woman  need  Greek  or  geometry  in  taking  care 
of  a  house  and  baby .? " 

This  is  well  branded'  as  ' '  the  great  button  and  slipper  argu- 
ment "  against  the  higher  education  of  women,  in  which  it 
is  urged  if  a  woman  were  once  permitted  to  know  Greek 
plays  or  astronomy,  or,  in  short,  to  nibble  at  any  side  of 
the  apple  of  knowledge,  there  would  be  an  end  to  her  sew- 
ing on  buttons  or  working  slippers.  The  conclusion  is, 
indeed,  terrific.  Facts,  however,  disprove  it.  The  in- 
tellectual equality,  and  even  (in  many  cases)  the  superi- 
ority of  woman  to  man  is  proved  by  these  representative 
examples  ;  Maria  Bassi  so  distinguished  herself  in  mathe- 
matics and  classics  as  to  become  a  professor  in  the  Uni- 
versity of  Bologna.  Elizabeth  Carter,  of  England,  was  a 
thorough  Greek,  Latin,  and  Hebrew  scholar,  besides  under- 
standmg  Italian,  Spanish,  German,  French,  Portuguese, 
and  Arabic.  The  great  Doctor  Samuel  Johnson,  speaking 
of  a  celebrated  scholar,  said  that  he  '' understood  Greek  bet- 
ter than  any  one  he  had  ever  known,  except  Mrs.  Carter." 
Her  brother  wrote  to  her  that  he  had  translated  one  of  the 
odes  of  Horace  so  well  that  it  was  supposed  to  be  her  work. 
Her  translation  of  Epictetus,  the  old  Roman  philosopher, 
won  her  fame  and  fortune.  Caroline  Herschel  announced 
the  discovery  of  eight  comets,  five  of  which  unquestion- 
ably were  first  seen  by  her. 

Lady  Jane  Grey  wrote  and  spoke,  with  facility  and  cor- 
rectness, Latm,  Greek,  Italian,  and  French,  and  was  also 
versed  m  Hebrew,  Chaldee,  and  Arabic.  Queen  Elizabeth 
spoke    Latm  easily  and  was   a  fine  Greek  scholar.    Dora 


THE  REAL  RIGHTS  OF  WOMAN,  221 

d'lstria,  it  is  said,  speaks  sixteen  languages,  and  is  one  of 
the  most  learned  women  of  the  age. 

These  and  such  like  facts,  too  numerous  to  cite  in  this 
connection  have  at  last  forced  men  to  the  conclusion  that 
women  are  intellectually  their  equals,  and  all  they  need 
in  order  to  show  this  is  a  "chance."  In  Cambridge  and  Ox- 
ford Universities,  England  ;  in  the  London  University 
and  University  College  ;  in  the  art  schools  and  other  edu- 
cational institutions  of  England  women  have  been  admit- 
ted, and  have  not  only  distinguished  themselves,  but  have 
often  outstripped  their  male  classmates  or  associates.  In 
America,  besides  Vassar,  Wellesley  and  Smith  Colleges, 
where  women  are  annually  equipped  to  compete  with  the 
intellectual  giants  of  the  day,  women  are  received  into 
nearly  two  hundred  of  our  three  hundred  colleges  on  an 
equal  footing  with  the  men.  The  high  education  of  women, 
therefore,  and  their  education  with  men-  in  the  same  institu- 
tion, are  no  longer  matters  of  speculation  but  matters  of 
fact,  and  the  results  are  better  than  many  even  among  the 
women  expected.  The  physical  constitution  of  "  the 
weaker  sex,"  which  was  urged  against  their  higher  educa- 
tion, has  stood  the  strain  quite  as  well  as,  if  not  better  than, 
the  men's.  The  distinctions  women  have  gained  and  do 
gain  in  all  departments  of  study  are  in  everyway  equal  to 
those  won  by  the  men.  And  so  it  is  no  longer  a  question 
whether  women  should  be  highly  educated  or  not.  As 
another  says:  "The  true  measure  of  a  woman's  right  to 
knowledge  is  her  capacity  for  receiving  it,  and  not  any 
theories  of  ours  as  to  what  she  is  fit  for  or  what  she  is 
likely  to  do  with  it." 

But  while  it  is  quite  generally  admitted  that  women  have 
the  same  right  to  an  education  that  men  have,  yet,  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  many  parents  who  take  it  as  a  matter  of 
course  that  their  sons  should  be  thoroughly  educated  give 
their  daughters  a  comparatively  meagre  education — perhaps 
because  they  secretly  hold  the  old  opinion  that  the  girls 
will  soon  marry,  and  therefore  not  need  Greek  or  geom- 
etry in  taking  care  of  the  house  and  baby.  As  \i,  for- 
s  )Oth,  an  intellectual  man  wants  to  talk  to  an  ignora- 
mus of  a  wife  after  the  baby  is  put  to  sleep  for  the  night  ! 
The  woman  as  a  wife  can  be  and  should  be  a  great  mental 
stimulus  and  inspiration  to  her  husband,  and  in  order  to 
be  this  she  must,  of  course,  be  well  educated.      No  doubt 


2  22  TOPICS  OF  THE  TIMES. 

girls  are  themselves  often  to  blame  for  not  getting  a  better 
education,  since  they  prefer  frivolous  employments  to  hard 
study  and  do  not  insist  on  their  parents  giving  them  first- 
class  educational  opportunities  ;  but  the  parents  may  more 
frequently  instil  into  their  daughters'  minds  a  sense  of  the 
importance  of  a  thorough  education  and  a  love  of  study. 
It  is  the  only  way  to  elevate  the  intellectual  condition  of 
young  women. 

The  mental  development  of  woman  being  granted,  it  is 
quite  as  important  to  insist  that  she  should  receive  thorough 
manual  training.  It  is  being  more  and  more  recognized 
that  industrial  schools  for  men  are  absolutely  necessary. 
It  is  one  of  the  best  means  of  protecting  and  benefiting 
labor,  and  the  very  same  reasons  that  prove  the  necessity 
of  manual  training  for  men  prove  the  need  of  manual  train- 
ing for  women.  The  women  are  taking  their  places  by 
the  side  of  men  in  the  factory,  the  office  and  even  on  the 
farm,  and  hence  they  need  special  preparation  for  their 
several  kinds  of  work.  I  believe  that  in  New  York  City 
a  school  has  just  been  started  for  the  purpose  of  educating 
domestic  servants.  The  object  will  be  not  only  to  make 
them  efficient  in  their  work,  but  also  to  teach  them  that  it 
is  noble  and  not  degrading.  There  should  be  a  training 
school  for  mistresses  as  well  as  for  servants  to  teach  the  need 
of  kindness  and  justice  on  the  part  of  employers,  as  well 
as  to  instruct  them  as  to  the  nature  of  certain  kinds  of  work. 
In  Eno^land,  in  connection  with  the  South  Kensinj^ton  Mu- 
seum  there  is  a  school  of  art  needlework,  which  has  done 
excellent  work  for  years,  and  near  by  is  a  large  cookery 
school,  which  is  also  doing  admirable  work  both  in  plain 
and  high  class  cookery.  What  a  blessing  to  bilious  people 
such  a  school  must  be  !  In  Edinburgh  a  cookery  school 
was  established  in  1875,  of  which  Mrs.  Gladstone  is  a 
zealous  patron,  and  it  has  done  a  most  su-ccessful  work. 

House  decoration,  wood  engraving  and  carving,  paint- 
ing, designing,  and  even  agriculture  have  all  been  success- 
fully engaged  in  by  women  in  England  and  on  the  Con- 
tinent of  Europe,  and  special  courses  of  preparation  for 
these  several  kinds  of  work  have  been  provided  from  which 
the  best  results  have  been  realized.  Let  us  earnestly  hope 
that  the  industrial  training  of  women  will  go  hand  in  hand 
with  their  intellectual  development,  until  science  shall  ex- 
lend  its  beneficent  sway  over  the  kitchen^  the  laundry,  the 


THE  REAL  RIGHTS  OF  WOMAN. 


223 


nursery  and  the  bed-chamber  as  well  as  over  the  hospital, 
the  factory,  the  oftice,  the  studio,  and  the  college-hall — until 
the  dextrous  hand  of  woman  shall  be  deftly  guided  by  her 
finely  cultivated  mind  in  her  mission  of  mercy  and  love  to 
her  fellow-sufferers,  whose  tears  she  can  dry,  whose  wounds 
she  can  heal,  whose  souls  she  can  purify  and  ennoble  as 
no  man  can. 

Secondly,  woman  has  a  right  to  an  equal  chance  ivith  mail 
as  a  wage-earner.      Hundreds  of  thousands   of  women  are 
employed  side  by  side  with  men  in  the  industrial  sphere ; 
they  do  the  same  work,  and   often  they  do  it  better   than 
men  do,  but  it  is  a  notorious  fact  that  they  receive  much 
lower  wages,  simply  because  they  are  women.     Of  course, 
sometimes  they  cannot  and  do  not  do  as  much  work  as  the 
men,  and  in  such  cases  justice  would  give  the  men  higher 
wages.      Again,  the  women  frequently  consent,  nay,  almost 
habitually  consent,  to  work  for  lower  wages  than  are  paid 
the  men  ;  they  don't  seem  to  expect  the  same  wage  ;  why 
not,  we  cannot  tell,  unless  it  is  because  they  have  been  so 
long  oppressed  that  they  are  timid  about  demanding  their 
rights.      But  as  long  as  they  consent  to  work  for  less  than 
men  they  cannot  blame  their  employers  for  paying  them 
less.     They  should  organize  as  the  men — both  capitalists 
and  laboring  men  do — and  agitate  for  a  fair  day's  work,  for 
a  fair  day's  wage,  and  their  more  fortunate  sisters — those 
who  enjoy  comparative  freedom  and  a  better  education — 
should  help  them  in  their  struggle.      If  you  doubt  the  need 
of  such  an  effort   read  such  books   as  Helen  Campbell's 
*'  Prisoners  of  Poverty,"  which  gives  an  account  of  the  con- 
dition of  the  working  women   of  New  York  City,  but  is 
really  a  description  of  the  working  women's  general  status. 
In  Philadelphia,  Chicago,  San  Francisco  and  other  large 
cities,  and  even  in  smaller  towns,  the  same  state  of  things 
exists.      Woman   is  underpaid  and  overworked.      In  New 
York,  one  hundred  and  fifty  thousand   women  work  for  an 
average  wage  of  sixty  cents  a  day,  from  daylight  till  ten 
or  eleven  o'clock  at  night.     The   result,  of  course,  is  star- 
vation,  disease,  prostitution,  insanity,  suicide,  and  untold 
horrors. 

Take  a  few  examples  of  how  prosperous  firms,  where 
the  women  are  better  paid  and  better  treated  than  in  other 
places,  do  work.  "  In  a  certain  large  factory,"  says  Helen 
Campbell,  "  pieg^-wprk  js  done,    French  cutters  and  fitters, 


2  24  TOPICS  OF  THE   TIMES. 

receiving  from  thirty  to  fifty  dollars  a  week,  give  that  guar- 
antee of  style  and  elegance  which  is  inherent  in  everything 
bearing  the  stamp  of  this  firm.  Experts  run  the  machines 
in  the  sewing-machine  room,  being  paid  by  the  day  at  the 
rate  of  from  six  to  eight  dollars  per  week  in  the  busy 
season.  The  buttonholes  are  made  by  women  who  do 
nothing  else,  and  who  are  paid  by  the  dozen,  earning  from 
five  to  seven  dollars  weekly.  All  stitched  seams  are  done 
in  the  machine-room,  and  the  dress  passes  from  there  to 
the  sewing-room  into  the  hands  of  the  sewing-girls,  who 
receive  from  three  to  four  dollars  and  a  half  for  each  gar- 
ment. The  latter  price  is  seldom  reached  ;  four  dollars 
and  a  half  or  five  dollars  paying  for  a  dress  loaded  with 
trimming,  puffs,  flounces,  etc. 

' '  At  this  rate  there  would  seem  to  be  a  chance  for  wages  a 
good  deal  beyond  the  average,  but  //  is  one  of  the  unwritten 
laws  that  no  seiving-girl  shall  exceed  Jive  dollars  per  week. 
Whether  formulated  by  superintendent  or  by  firm  remains 
yet  to  be  discovered.  The  one  unquestionable  fact  is  that 
if  the  superintendent  of  the  work-room  finds  that  any  girl 
is  expert  enough  to  make  over  this  amount,  the  price  per 
garment  is  docked  to  bring  her  down  to  the  level.  They 
are  never  driven.  On  the  contrary,  they  must  wait  often 
two  or  three  hours  at  times  for  the  arrival  of  "IMadame" 
who  must  inspect  the  work,  drape  a  skirt,  or  give  some 
suggestion  as  to  trimming.  No  entreaty  can  induce  the 
superintendent  to  give  out  another  piece  of  work  which 
might  fill  this  vacant  time,  and  the  girls  dare  not  state  their 
case  to  the  employer.  No  member  of  the  firm  enters  the 
work-room.     Complaint  would  ensure  discharge. 

"  In  other  large  establishments  the  methods  are  much  the 
same,  with  merely  slight  variations  as  to  comfort  of  quar- 
ters, time  for  lunch,  sanitary  conditions,  etc.  But  in  all 
alike,  the  indispensable,  but  always  very  helpless,  sewing- 
girl  appears  to  be  one  of  the  chief  sources  of  profit,  and  to 
have  small  capacity  and  no  opportunity  for  improving  her 
condition." 

The  "boss"  in  a  certain  store  said  to  ]\Irs.  Campbell  : 
"We  don't  want  men.  We  wouldn't  have  them  even  if 
they  came  at  the  same  price.  Of  course,  cheapness  has 
something  to  do  with  it,  and  will  have,  but  for  my  part 
give  me  a  woman  to  deal  with  every  time.  Now  there's 
aa  illustration  over  at  the  hat-counter.     We  were  short  of 


THE  REAL  RIGHTS  OF  WOMAN. 


225 


hands  to-day  and  I  had  to  send  for  three  girls  that  had 
applied  for  places,  but  were  green — didn't  know  the  busi- 
ness. It  didn't  take  them  ten  minutes  to  get  the  hang  of 
doing  things,  and  there  they  are,  and  you'd  never  know 
which  was  old  and  which  was  new  hand.  Of  course,  they 
don't  know  all  about  qualities  and  so  on,  but  the  head  of 
the  department  looks  out  for  that.  No,  give  me  women 
every  time.  I've  been  a  manager  thirteen  years,  and  we 
never  had  but  four  dishonest  girls,  and  we've  had  to  dis- 
charge over  forty  boys  in  the  same  time.  Boys  smoke  and 
lose  at  cards,  and  do  a  hundred  things  that  women  don't, 
and  they  get  worse  instead  of  better.      I  go  in  for  women." 

*'  If  they  are  really  worth  so  much  to  you,  why  can't  you 
give  better  pay.?"  asked  Mrs.  Campbell.  *'We  give  as 
high  pay  as  anybody,"  answered  the  superintendent, 
"  and  we  don't  give  more  because  for  every  girl  here  there 
are  a  dozen  waiting  to  take  her  place.  As  to  saving,  she 
doesn't  want  to  save.  There  isn't  a  girl  here  that  doesn't 
expect  to  marry  before  long,  and  she  puts  what  she  makes 
on  her  back,  because  a  fellow  naturally  goes  for  the  best 
looking  and  best  dressed  girl.  That's  the  woman  question 
as  I've  figured  it  out,  and  you'll  find  it  the  same  every- 
where." "Practically,"  our  author  adds,  "he  was  right, 
for  the  report,  though  varying  slightly,  summed  up  as  sub- 
stantially the  same." 

If  this  can  be  truly  said — and  it  cannot  be  denied — of 
prosperous  firms,  what  do  you  suppose  is  the  condition  of 
the  working  w^oman  in  the  lower  grades  of  employment  ? 
Read  Mrs.  Campbell's  book  and  you  will  find  the  answer 
in  facts  which  will  wring  tears  from  your  eyes  and  groans 
for  your  suffering  sisters.  These  words  quoted  and  com- 
mented upon  by  this  noble  woman  should  rouse  even  the 
most  thoughtless  female  to  reflection  upon  her  sister's 
wrongs  and  needs. 

"The  emancipation  of  woman,"  said  a  lecturer  before 
a  woman's  club,  "is  certainly  well  under  way  when  all 
underwear  can  be  bought  more  cheaply  than  it  is  pos- 
sible to  make  it  up  at  home,  and  simple  suits  of  very  good 
material  make  it  hardly  more  difficult  for  a  woman  to 
clothe  herself  without  thought  or  worry  than  it  has  long 
been  for  a  man." 

"This  is  only  one  side  of  the  story,"  says  INIrs.  Camp- 
bell,   "for  emancipation  on  the  one  side  has  meant  no  cor- 

15 


2  26  TOPICS  OF  THE   TIMES. 

responding  emancipation  for  the  other  ;  and  as  one  woman 
selects,  well  pleased,  garment  after  garment  daintily  tucked 
and  trimmed,  and  finished  beyond  any  capacity  of  ordinary 
home  sewing,  marvelling  a  little  that  a  few  dollars  can 
give  such  lavish  return,  there  arises  from  narrow  attic  and 
dark  foul  basement  and  crowded  factory  the  cry  of  the 
women  whose  life-blood  is  on  these  garments.  Through 
burning,  scorching  days  of  summer;  through  marrow- 
piercing  cold  of  winter,  in  hunger  and  rags,  with  white- 
faced  children  at  their  knees  crying  for  more  bread,  or 
silent  from  long  weakness,  looking  with  blank  eyes  at  the 
flying  needle,  these  women  toil  on,  twelve,  fourteen,  six- 
teen hours  even,  before  the  fixed  task  is  done.  The  slice  of 
baker's  bread  and  the  bowl  of  rank  black  tea  boiled  to 
extract  every  possibility  of  strength  are  taken,  still  at  the 
machine.  It  is  easier  to  sit  there  than  in  rising  and  move- 
ment to  find  what  weariness  is  in  every  limb."  This  is 
what  cheap  clothing  means.  The  destruction  of  the  lives 
of  thousands  of  mothers  and  children,  the  degradation  of 
women  who  are  entitled  to  the  same  comforts  and  luxuries 
that  others  enjoy — nay,  who  are  more  entitled  to  them  than 
these,  for  they  toil  night  and  day,  while  those  who  reap  the 
rewards  of  their  labor  spend  it  in  ostentation,  idleness  and 
sin. 

For  the  working  woman,  then,  I  plead — for  the  woman 
who  stands  behind  the  counter  or  bends  over  the  sewing- 
machine,  or  draws  the  needle,  or  handles  the  broom,  the 
pan,  the  machine,  for  weary,  weary  hours— for  the  woman 
whose  life-blood  is  crushed  out  before  she  reaches  the 
bloom  of  womanhood,  I  earnestly  beg  a  fair  chance  and  a 
fair  wage. 

Of  course,  I  know  as  well  as  any  one  the  w^eakness  and 
inefficiency  of  the  woman  worker  no  less  than  that  of  the 
man  worker.  I  know,  too  that  in  many  cases  the  em- 
ployer is  driven  harder  than  the  employe.  Said  a  busi- 
ness manager  of  a  firm  employing  1,462  hands  to  Mrs 
Campbell;  "You  would  have  to  go  into  business  your- 
self to  understand  just  how  we  are  driven. "  ''  Suppose  you 
refuse  to  be  driven  .?  "  she  asked.  "  Suppose  !  "  exclaimed 
the  man,  throwing  up  his  hands;  ''There  is  no  room  for 
supposes  in  business,  madam.  We  do  what  we  must. 
How^  are  we  to  compete  with  a  factory  turning  out  suits 
by  steam  power  ?     Not  that  we  would  compete.     There 


THE  REAL  RIGHTS  OF  WOMAN.  227 

is  really  no  occasion,"  be  added  hastily.  "But  their 
methods  certainly  have  an  unpleasant  influence,  and  we 
are  obliged  to  take  them  into  account  slightly." 

Yes,  it  is  cut-throat  competition  that  is  driving  both  em- 
ployer and  employed  to  starvation  and  death,  and  yet 
most  business  men  think  that  this  is  the  only  principle  on 
which  a  successful  business  can  be  done.  It  is  strange, 
indeed,  that  men  of  such  fine  common  sense,  strength 
of  will  and  purpose,  should  see  and  confess  the  wicked- 
ness of  the  industrial  system  under  which  they  work,  and 
yet  insist  that  there  is  no  deliverance.  We  don't  believe 
it  !  We  have  no  nostrums  for  the  social  and  industrial 
ills,  but  we  don't  believe  they  are  necessary  and  irremov- 
able. We  believe  that  a  sincere,  manly,  vigorous  effort 
on  the  part  of  both  employer  and  employed  would  result 
in  devising  some  better  method  of  doing  work,  whereby 
capital  and  labor  would  get  their  just  reward.  At  any 
rate,  we  must  not  blink  at  the  evils  and  injustices  which  all 
parties  endure,  and  especially  the  sufferings  of  the  work- 
ing-woman. Her  labor  should  be  made  more  effective  and 
remunerative  and  her  lot  should  be  generally  improved — 
should  be  made  at  least  equally  as  agreeable  and  satis- 
factory as  the  man's  lot  is. 

Third.  Woman  has  certain  rights  as  a  wife  which  are 
but  grudgingly  recognized  and  conceded.  I  believe  in 
the  absolute  equality  of  husband  and  wife.  There  is  a 
growing  inclination  among  the  women  to  refuse  to  prom- 
ise to  "obey  "their  husbands  when  they  marry.  Many 
a  young  woman  will  consent  to  use  this  word  in  the  mar- 
riage service  only  when  assured  by  her  lover  or  the  min- 
ister that  while  the  woman  promises  to  "obey  "  the  man 
will  actually  have  to  fulfil  the  promise.  At  first  sight  we 
may  be  disposed  to  laugh  at  the  women  for  such  "cranky  " 
scruples,  as  we  may  consider  them,  but  the  intelligent 
advocates  of  woman's  intellectual,  industrial,  marital  and 
political  emancipation  will  tell  you  that  there  are  deeper 
and  better  reasons  for  objecting  to  this  feature  of  the  mar- 
riage union  than  the  foolish  independence  of  a  school  girl. 
That  word  "obey"  in  the  service  is  a  relic  of  the  past. 
It  indicates  the  subjection  of  the  woman  to  the  man  ;  and 
while  public  opinion  has  greatly  improved,  while  this  law 
has  tended  and  is  tending  more  and  more  to  become  a 
dead  letter,  yet  that  promise  either  binds  the  woman  to 


2  28  TOPICS  OF  THE   TIMES. 

connubial  slavery  or  it  amounts  to  nothing-.  If  it  does  the 
former — and  we  know  that  many  husbands  do  require 
very  strict  obedience  from  their  wives — it  is  unjust ;  if  it 
amounts  to  nothing-,  why  require  it? 

It  is  a  relic  of  barbarism,  indicating  a  matrimonial  state 
not  congruous  with  a  truly  Christian  society.  Jesus  Christ 
nowhere  taught  the  subjection  of  the  wife  to  the  husband. 
St.  Paul's  teaching  on  this  subject  has  been  and  is  still 
greatly  misunderstood.  In  one  place  he  does,  indeed,  say, 
"Wives,  submit  yourselves  to  your  own  husbands,"  but  in 
the  same  breath  he  adds,  "Husbands,  loveyour  wives,  and 
be  not  bitter  against  them."  If  the  husbands  were  to 
fulfil  this  injunction,  wifely  subjection  in  any  onerous 
manner  would  be  simply  impossible,  and  I  submit  it  is 
unjust  to  tear  apart  the  great  Apostle's  teaching — to  quote 
his  injunction  to  wives  and  omit  his  even  more  earnest 
injunction  to  husbands.  But  in  another  place  (i  Cor.  xi. ) 
he  emphatically  asserts  the  equality  of  man  and  woman, 
in  these  words:  "Nevertheless  neither  is  the  man  without 
the  woman,  neither  the  woman  without  the  man,  in  the 
Lord.  For  as  the  woman  is  of  the  man,  even  so  is  the 
man  also  by  the  woman,  but  all  things  of  God."  If  St. 
Paul  were  alive  to-day  I  doubt  not  that  he  would  affirm  as 
strongly  as  any  one  the  equality  of  the  sexes,  and  con- 
demn wife  slavery  as  earnestly  as  any  advocate  of  woman's 
rights.  Such  advocates  are  wont  to  depreciate  the  influ- 
ence of  Christianity  in  elevating  woman,  but  despite  the 
perversions  of  St.  Paul's  and  Christ's  teaching  on  this  sub- 
ject, which  have  occurred  during  the  history  of  the  Church, 
I  think  an  unprejudiced  study  of  that  history  will  show 
that,  wherever  the  real  principles  of  Christianity  have  been 
applied,  the  effect  upon  the  status  of  woman  has  been  good. 
However  this  maybe,  and  I  am  not  hereto  plead  the  cause 
of  the  Church,  the  fact  is  that  the  status  of  woman  has 
steadily  tended  upward  from  the  beginning  of  civilization, 
and  she  has  now  reached  a  position  where  she  should  be 
as  independent  as  man. 

There  is  nothing  more  interesting  than  the  study  of 
the  development  of  the  Family.  As  in  every  other  case, 
there  are  two  views  on  this  subject.  One  holds  that  the 
Family  was  established  in  Eden,  but  owing  to  the  Fall  of 
Man  it  degenerated,  until  all  the  evils  of  savage  unions  were 
the  result.     The  more  rational  view  holds  that  the  Eden 


TIJE  REAL  RIGHTS  OF  WOMAN.  229 

story  refers  to  a  later  period  of  human  history,  when  the 
Family  was  emerging-  from  its  degraded  position  among 
savages  to  a  higher  and  better  condition.  At  tirst,  men 
and  women  lived  together  promiscuously,  as  the  animals 
do,  and  as  the  lowest  tribes  of  men  do  now.  Then,  when 
various  causes  thinned  out  the  women,  one  woman  would 
be  the  wife  of  several  men.  On  the  other  hand,  when 
different  causes  destroyed  the  men,  one  man  would  be- 
come the  husband  of  several  wives. 

These  two  forms  of  union  are  called  respectively  "  poly- 
andry " — one  woman  for  several  men — and  "polygyny" — 
one  man  for  several  women.  Even  in  civilized  America 
we  find  a  state  of  things  closely  akin  to  these  savage 
customs  existing,  owing  to  the  disgraceful  frequency  of 
divorce.  Finally,  monogamy,  the  union  of  one  man  and 
one  woman,  was  evolved,  and  this  is  confessedly  the  highest, 
the  ideal  form  of  marital  relationship.  Mr.  Spencer,  who 
has  elaborately  and  clearly  worked  out  the  view  of  mar- 
riage here  glanced  at,  says:  "The  monogamic  form  of 
sexual  relation  is  manifestly  the  ultimate  form  ;  and  any 
changes  to  be  anticipated  must  be  in  the  direction  of  com- 
pletion and  extension  of  it."  Again,  he  says  :  "  Evi- 
dently, as  tested  by  the  definiteness  and  strength  of  the 
links  among  its  members,  the  monogamic  family  is  the 
most  evolved.  In  polyandry,  the  maternal  connection  is 
alone  distinct,  and  the  children  are  but  partially  related  to 
one  another.  In  polygyny  both  the  maternal  and  paternal 
connections  are  distinct ;  but  while  some  ot  the  children 
are  fully  related,  others  are  related  on  the  paternal  side 
only.  In  monogamy  not  only  are  the  maternal  and  pater- 
nal connections  both  distinct,  but  all  the  children  are 
related  on  both  sides.  The  family  cluster  is  thus  held 
together  by  more  numerous  ties ;  and  beyond  the  greater 
cohesion  so  caused  there  is  an  absence  of  those  repulsions 
caused  by  the  jealousies  inevitable  in  the  polygynic  family. " 
He  also  points  out  that  monogamy  is  superior  to  poly- 
gyny and  polyandry  in  productive  power  :  its  effect  upon 
the  community,  socially,  politically  and  morally,  is  better 
than  in  the  more  savage  states  ;  it  prevents  great  mortality 
of  offspring,  by  drawing  parents  and  children  closer  to- 
gether ;  it  has  better  effects  upon  the  physical  constitution 
of  adults,  and  it  conduces  to  happiness  in  the  declining 
years  of  husband  and  w^ife. 


230  TOPICS  OF  THE  TIMES. 

In  this  day,  when  the  Family  is  threatened  with  destruc- 
tion by  lax  ideas  of  marriage  and  divorce,  the  great  phil- 
osopher's words  cannot  be  too  carefully  pondered.  The 
familiar  song  tells  us  most  beautifully  that  "there's  no 
place  like  home,"  and  Frederick  Robertson  as  truly  says 
•'  a  happy  ho)ne  is  the  single  spot  of  rest  which  a  man  has 
upon  this  earth  for  the  cultivation  of  his  noblest  sensibili- 
ties. "'  Whatever,  therefore,  strikes  at  the  home  strikes  at  the 
heart  of  man,  and  should  be  resisted  unto  death.  There 
never  was  a  more  beautiful  picture  than  that  of  "The 
Holy  Family,"  and  from  the  birth  of  Christianity  to  the 
present  time  the  Family  has  tended  to  become  more  and 
more  sacred,  and  woman  has  been  more  and  more  eman- 
cipated from  domestic  slavery,  until  now  complete  freedom 
looms  high  on  her  horizon. 

Under  the  old  Roman  law,  the  woman  was  in  perpetual 
tutelage  to  her  husband,  and  he  had  power  of  life  and  death 
over  her  and  absolute  control  of  her  property.  But  in  the 
reign  of  the  Emperor  Justinian,  who  formulated  a  cele- 
brated code  of  laws,  much  of  which  still  remains  in  force, 
tutelage  was  abolished  and  the  absolute  power  of  the 
husband  ceased.  The  tendency  "towards  the  personal  and 
proprietary  independence"  of  woman  in  modern  times 
received  its  first  impulse  from  the  Justinian  Code.  The 
mother  acquired,  what  she  did  not  previously  possess, 
equal  rights  with  the  father  over  the  succession  of  deceased 
children. 

Among  the  early  German  tribes  woman  held  a  different 
position  from  that  which  she  occupied  in  the  Roman  Empire. 
She  was  peculiarly  revered,  and  was  the  companion, 
counsellor,  prophetess,  and  comforter  of  her  husband. 
But  his  authority  over  her  was  absolute,  and  she  could  be 
sold  by  him  or  bought  or  beaten  or  killed.  She  was  in 
the  power  of  her  husband  in  all  acts  of  domestic  life,  and 
in  civil  life  she  could  only  act  through  him.  She  entered 
with  all  her  property  under  his  guardianship,  but  he  could 
not  dispose  alone  of  her  estate.  He  was  not  her  master, 
and  at  his  death  she  received  a  portion — sometimes  a 
third  or  even  a  half  of  their  common  acquisitions.  But 
while  woman's  position  under  the  early  German  law  was 
somewhat  better  than  it  was  under  the  early  Roman  law, 
it  was  not  enviable  :  a  wife  rated  at  so  many  pieces  of 
silver  could  not  be  an  ideal  companion. 


THE  REAL  RIG  JITS  OF  WOMAN.  23 1 

England  inherited  the  essential  features  of  the  old  German 
and  Scandinavian  law,  and  woman  occupied  a  very  de- 
graded position  for  many  centuries  in  that  country.  '  *  The 
husband,"  says  a  writer  on  this  subject,  "became  th'e 
natural  guardian  of  his  wife,  and  both  represented  and 
absorbed  the  person  and  property  of  his  ward.  Legal  rights 
were  nieasured  by  physical  force."  Then  the  archaic  idea 
came  in  of  retaining  the  property  of  the  woman  in  her 
new  family,  and  preventing  both  her  relatives  or  her- 
self separating  it  from  her  husband  s.  Thus,  perhaps, 
arose  the  peculiar  English  idea  of  the  married  woman 
which  has  come  to  us  in  the  common  law.  Under  it  the 
wife's  legal  existence  was  suspended  or  extinguished  during 
marriage  ;  her  property  was  sacrificed,  and  she  was  placed 
almost  absolutely  in  the  hands  of  her  husband,  as  regards 
her  civil  rights.  Her  fortune  passed  to  her  husband  for 
his  temporary  or  permanent  enjoyment.  She  could  not 
earn  anything  for  herself,  nor  in  general  make  any  legal 
contract,  sue  or  be  sued,  because  she  was  not  legally  a 
person.  The  great  dramatist  only  pictures  the  common 
law  when  he  makes  one  of  his  characters  declare  :  "I 
will  be  master  of  what  is  mine  own.  She  is  my  goods, 
my  chattels,  she  is  my  house,  my  household  stuff,  my  field, 
my  barn,  my  horse,  my  ox,  my  ass,  my  anything."  But 
one  great  influence  arose  in  the  middle  ages  which  tended 
strongly  to  elevate  woman's  position  and  increase  her  power, 
and  that  was  chivalry.  "To  chivalry,"  says  the  writer  just 
quoted,  "  woman  is  indebted  in  the  middle  ages  for  a  posi- 
tion she  had  never  before  enjoyed  in  history,  which  gave 
her  a  claim  almost  unknown  till  then,  and  which  spread 
over  a  society  steeped  in  barbarism  a  grace  and  refinement 
that  have  come  down  to  our  day."  A  reader  of  Sir  Walter 
Scott's  great  novels  will  appreciate  the  force  of  this  state- 
ment, and  chivalry  was  a  direct  product  of  the  Christian 
spirit. 

The  legal  oppression  of  woman  in  England  began  to  be 
lightened  in  the  middle  ages,  but  especially  during  the 
last  hundred  years  a  doctrine  of  woman's  rights  more 
consonant  to  humane  and  Christian  ideas  has  been  main- 
tained in  the  Equity  Courts  of  England.  The  great  truth 
everywhere  urged  by  the  Master,  of  the  distinct  personality 
and  responsibility  of  each  human  being,  has  been  applied 
to  the  woman  as   wife  by  these   courts,  and  her  equality 


232  TOPICS  OF  THE  TIMES. 

more  and  more  advanced.  Recent  legislation  ''seems  to 
give  absolute  liberty  to  the  wife  of  acquiring,  holding,  and 
disposing  of  any  property  as  her  separate  property  ;  so 
that  even  the  wages  of  a  married  woman  in  Great  Britain 
the  profits  of  her  literary,  artistic  or  scientific  skill,  her  de- 
posits in  savings  banks,  and  indeed  all  property  which 
may  belong  to  her  at  marriage,  is  hers,  to  do  as  she  pleases 
with." 

In  America  efforts  towards  the  legal  emancipation  of 
woman  were  begun  early  in  this  century,  and  have  steadily 
increased  in  strength  and  influence,  until  now,  in  many 
states  at  least,  she  is  placed  on  legal  equality  with  man, 
and  thus  you  see  why  intelligent  women  object  to  promis- 
ing to  "obey"  their  husbands.  They  have  been  gradu- 
ally freed  from  matrimonial  slavery,  and  they  naturally 
dislike  to  hold  on  to  its  most  hateful  relic.  Hence  it  is  to 
be  hoped  that  all  marriage  ceremonies  will  soon  be  revised 
according  to  the  iiew  light  and  law. 

Herbert  Spencer  truly  says  :  ''Equity  knows  no  differ- 
ence of  sex,"  and,  therefore,  justice  demands  the  absolute 
equality  of  man  and  wife. 

Fourth.  Has  woman  a  right  to  the  ballot.?  If  not, 
why  not  ?  Consider,  first,  that  she  has  proved  herself  in- 
tellectually the  equal  of  man.  Hence  if  her  right  of  suf- 
rage  be  denied  it  must  be  on  some  other  ground  than  that 
of  mental  inferiority.  Secondly,  she  has  become  legally 
man's  equal,  and  still  remains  a  woman  and  a  wife — per- 
haps a  better  wife  than  before.  Third,  in  numbers  of 
cases  from  Deborah  to  Queen  Victoria,  she  has  shown  her- 
self competent  to  guide  the  ship  of  state  triumphantly 
over  the  troubled  social  and  political  waters.  Fourth, 
this  nation,  fifteen  years  after  it  freed  an  inferior  race  from 
the  bonds  of  slavery  which  it  had  endured  for  centuries, 
placed  in  its  hands  the  ballot,  and  thousands  of  ignorant, 
degraded  white  men  enjoy  the  same  privilege.  The  woman 
is  taxed  as  well  as  the  man,  and  yet  she  has  no  voice  or 
power  in  making  the  laws  under  which  she  lives.  Mani- 
festly this  is  altogether  unjust.  For  my  own  part,  I  be- 
lieve in  both  an  extension  and  a  limitation  of  the  suffrage. 
I  don't  believe  that  my  vote,  which  may  be  the  result  of 
years  of  hard  study  of  the  principles  of  government,  should 
be  nullified  by  the  vote  of  an  ignorant  black  or  white  man 
which  may  have    been    bought    for  $2.00    or  a   glass    of 


THE  REAL  RIGHTS  OF  WOMAN. 


m 


whiskey.     There  is  no  sense  or  justice  in  this,  and   there- 
fore I  believe   that   the  ballot  ought  to  be  withheld  from 
the  negroes  and  ignorant  whites    until   they  become  com- 
petent to  use  it.      But  since  they  have   it  and  there  seems 
no  practicable  method  of  withdrawing  this    power  from 
them,   I  am   not  in  favor  of  trying  to  right  a  wrong  by 
doing  another.      I  believe  that  woman  has  a  better  right 
to  the  ballot  than  many  men  who  now  have  it.     I  believe 
she  will  get  it  in  due  time — that  she  should  get  it ;    but  I 
do  7iot  believe  that  women  as  a  class  are  yet  prepared  to 
make  the  best  possible  use  of  the  ballot,  and  hence  it  would 
be  unwise  and  unjust  to  give  it  to  them   now.     Owing  to 
their  long  exclusion   from  pohtical  and   legal  affairs,  and 
even  from  educational  advantages,  owing  to  their  position 
as  wives  and  mothers,  the  emotional  and  maternal  side  of 
their  natures  has  been   more   highly  developed  than   the 
rational    and  judicial  side — sentiment  instead  of  justice, 
feeling  instead  of  reason,  would  therefore  influence  them, 
with  few  exceptions,  too  much  in  civil  and  political  mat- 
ters.    The  instinct  for  government  must  be   more  fully 
developed  and  strengthened  throughout  the  class,  and  even 
the  leaders  of  the  movement  must  learn   many  things  by 
experience  ;  the  whole  movement  must  have  time  to  purify 
itself  of  excesses  and  to  be  thoroughly  rationalized  before 
the  power  sought  is  given.      In  all  this,  there  is  no  reflec- 
tion whatever  upon  the  female  character.    On  the  contrary, 
there  is  a  full  recognition  of  its  powers,  possibilities  and 
rights,  but  it  would  be  as  unjust  to  the  women   as  to  the 
men  to  give  them  power  which  would  be  used  to  their 
own  as  well  as  to  others'  disadvantages.     We  do  not  give 
educated  men  the  ballot  until  age  and  experience  have 
taught  them — or  at  least  until  they  have  had  an  opportunity 
to  learn  how  to  use  it.     We,  therefore,  advocate  agitation 
of  this  question:   we  would  push  forward  education  among 
the  women  on  legal  and  political  subjects,  and  when  the 
whole  class,  or  at  least  a  majority  of  them,  are  ready  and 
desirous  to  use  the  ballot,  we  would  give  it  them.      This 
is  essentially  the  view  of  Herbert  Spencer  on  this  subject, 
and  as  he  is  always  appealed  to  by  the  female  suffragists, 
I  shall   quote  him.     In  his   "Social   Statics,"    which  was 
the  first  book  he  wrote  and  was  written  in  early  life,  he 
was  far  more  radical  and  pronounced  than  he  is  to-day  in 
his  advocacy  of  woman  suffrage.      In  ''Social  Statics,"  his 


234  TOPICS  OF  THE  TIMES. 

advocacy  of   woman's    rights    is    unqualified,   but    in    Lis 
"  Principles    of    Sociology,  "     written    comparatively  re- 
cently,  he    says:     ''That    in   time   to    come    the    political 
status    of     women    may    be    raised     to    something    like 
equality   with    that   of  man,    seems  a  natural    deduction. 
.  But  such   an   approximate  equalization,  normally   accom- 
panying a  social   structure    of  the   completely    industrial 
type,  is  not  a  normal  accompaniment   of  social  types  still 
partially  militant.      Just    noting   that   giving   to   men   and 
women  equal  amounts  of  political  power,  while  the  polit- 
ical responsibilities    entailed    by    war    fall    on    men    only 
would  involve   a  serious  inequality,  and  that  the    desired 
equality  is  therefore  impracticable   while  wars  continue  : 
it  may  be  contended  that  though  the  possession  of  polit- 
ical power   by  women  might  improve  a  society  in  which 
State-regulation  has  been  brought  within  the  limits  proper 
to  pure  industrialism,  it  would  injure  a  society  in  which 
State-regulation    has    the    wider    range    characterizing   a 
more  or  less  militant  type.      Several  influences  would  con- 
duce to   retrogression.      The  greater  respect  for  authority 
and  weaker  sentiment  of  individual  freedom   characteriz- 
ing the  feminine  nature  would  tend  to   the   maintenance 
and    multiplication    of  restraints.      Eagerness    for   special 
and  immediate  results,  jomed  with   inability  to   appreciate 
general   and   remote    results,    characterizing   the    majority 
of  men    and   still  more    characterizing  women,    would,   if 
women  had  power,  entail  increase  of  coercive  measures 
for   achieving    present   good,    at    the    cost    of  future    evil 
caused  by  excess  of  control.      But  there   is  a  more  direct 
reason  for  anticipating  mischief  from  the  exercise  of  polit- 
ical power  by  women,  while  the  industrial  form  of  polit- 
ical   regulation   is    incomplete.      The    welfare    of  society 
requires  that  the   ethics  of  the  Family  and  the  ethics  of 
the  State  shall  be  kept  distinct.     Under  the  one  the  great- 
est benefits  must  be  given  where  the  merits  are  the  small- 
est :  under  the    other  the  benefits   must  be  proportioned 
to    the    merits.       For   the    infant   unqualified  generosity  ; 
lor  the  adult  citizen  absolute  justice.     Now  the  ethics  of 
the  Family  are  upheld  by  the  parental  instincts  and  senti- 
ments,   which,   in   the  female,   are  qualified  in   a  smaller 
degree  by  other  feelings  than  in  the  male.     Already  these 
emotions  proper  to  parenthood,  as  they  exist  in  men,  lead 
them  to  carry  the  ethics  of  the  Family  into  the  policy  of 


THE  REAL  RIGHTS  OF  WOMAN. 


235 


the  State,  and  the  mischief  resulting  would  be  increased 
were  these  emotions  as  existing  in  women,  directly  to 
influence  that  policy.  The  progress  towards  justice  in 
social  arrangements  would  be  retarded  and  demerit  would 
be  fostered  at  the  expense  of  merit  still  more  than  now. 
But  in  proportion  as  the  conceptions  of  pure  equity  be- 
come clearer — as  fast  as  the  regime  of  voluntary  co-oper- 
ation develops  to  the  full  sentiments  of  personal  freedom 
with  a  correlative  regard  for  the  like  freedom  of  others 
— as  fast  as  there  is  approached  a  state  under  which 
no  restrictions  on  individual  liberty  will  be  tolerated,  save 
those  which  the  equal  liberties  of  fellow-citizens  entail — 
as  fast  as  industrialism  evolves  its  appropriate  political 
agency,  which,  while  commissioned,  to  maintain  equable 
relations  among  citizens,  is  shorn  of  all  those  powers  of 
further  regulation  characterizing  the  militant  type  :  so  fast 
may  the  extension  of  political  power  to  women  go  on 
without  evil.  The  moral  evolution  which  leads  to  con- 
cession of  it  will  be  the  same  moral  evolution  which 
renders  it  harmless  and  probably  beneficia]."  *  These 
weighty  words  should  be  carefully  pondered  by  all, advo- 
cates of  woman's  rights.  They  mean  that  their  energies 
should  be  directed  to  the  destruction  of  war  and  the  war- 
like spirit  and  a  development  of  the  industrial  form  of 
society,  and  to  the  abolition  of  parentalism  in  govern- 
ment and  the  promotion  of  individual  liberty  and  re- 
sponsibility. In  a  military  age  and  under  a  military  re- 
gime, woman,  by  reason  of  her  physical  frailty,  could 
not  hold  her  place  beside  man  ;  but  in  an  industrial  so- 
ciety she  could.  In  a  government  where  the  rules  of 
the  nursery  were  applied  woman's  influence  would  prove 
detrimental  owing  to  her  maternal  instincts  and  senti- 
ments ;  but  when  the  judicial  side  of  her  nature — her 
sense  of  justice— is  developed  so  as  to  control  her  senti- 
ments, and  society  as  a  whole  has  learned  to  mete  out 
justice  to  each  individual,  then  her  influence  may  prove 
beneficial.  Fortunately  for  the  women,  war  is  becom- 
ing less  and  less  frequent  and  more  and  more  hateful, 
and  industrialism  and  justice  are  slowly  but  surely  gain- 
ing ground,  and  so  it  will  not  be  many  decades  before  the 
aspirations  of  woman  are  realized. 

*  "  Principles  of  Sociology,"  I.,  pp.  7^7-78. 


236  TOPICS  OF  THE  TIMES. 

The  Rev.  Charles  Loring  Brace,  the  well-known  phil- 
anthropist and  economist  who  died  recently,  and  who  was 
the  founder  of  the  Children's  Aid  Society  of  New  York, 
says,  iii  his  book  "  Gesta  Christi  "  (p.  296):  "Christianity 
by  itself  no  more  teaches  female  suffrage  than  it  does  re- 
publicanism or  free  trade.  But  it  throws  into  human  society 
that  sentiment  of  equality  before  God,  that  principle  of 
equal  rights  and  equal  responsibility,  and  of  universal 
brotherhood,  which  all  lead  logically  to  these  results.  The 
thorough  application  and  carrying  out  of  Christian  principles 
in  human  society  is  a  result  only  to  be  expected  in  distant 
ages.  In  the  meantime  it  is  the  part  of  wisdom  to  prepare 
the  world  for  these  great  changes,  and  to  begin  them  by 
slow  and  careful  steps.  In  the  United  States  and  England, 
a  useful  beginning  has  been  made  in  regard  to  woman,  by 
admitting  her  vote  in  elections  for  school  trustees  and  in 
municipalities.  The  time  is  not  far  distant  when  in  some 
communities  her  vote,  limited  by  property  and  education, 
will  be  received  on  larger  fields  of  suffrage.  So  great  and 
vital  a  change  will  thus  be  made  slowly  and  with  careful 
preparation.  Woman  will  be  trained  and  educated  for  her 
new  duty." 

These  are  the  opinions  of  all  earnest  minded,  intelligent 
men  and  women,  who  are  unbiased  by  prejudice  and  free 
from  fanaticisim.  They  cherish  no  preconceived  notions 
about  "woman's  sphere."  They  believe  that  her  "sphere  " 
is  limited  only  by  her  rights,  her  strength  and  her  qualifi- 
cations for  the  positions  sought.  They  not  only  wish  her 
Godspeed  in  every  good  and  perfect  work,  but  they  will 
lend  a  hand  to  promote  her  intellectual,  her  industrial,  her 
legal  and  her  political  emancipation. 

In  conclusion,  let  me  urge  professing  Christians,  on  the 
one  hand,  not  to  oppose  this  movement,  and  woman's 
advocates  not  to  be  unreasonable  in  their  demands  or  car- 
ried away  by  passion  and  opposition.  It  is  a  sad  fact  that 
the  Church,  which  professedly  stands  for  truth  and  justice, 
has,  as  an  organization,  often  opposed  the  greatest  and 
best  reforms.  It  condemned  Astronomy  ;  it  antagonized 
Geology  ;  it  denounces  Biology  ;  it  refuses  to  participate 
fully  in  social  and  industrial  reforms.  It  sanctioned  and 
upheld  slavery  and  even  trafficked  in  human  flesh.  It  has 
often  oppressed  woman.  The  canon  law  of  the  middle 
ages  was  largely  leveled  against  her ;  and  to-day  there  is 


THE  REAL  RIGHTS  OF  WOMAN,  237 

little  disposition  on  the  part  of  the  Church  as  an  organi- 
zation to  recognize  and  advocate  the  real  rights  of  woman. 
So  strong  is  its  indisposition  to  do  this,  that  some  of 
woman's  friends  are  strongly  inclined  to  cut  the  move- 
ment entirely  loose  from  Christianity  and  base  it  on  a  less 
intolerant  and  more  reasonable  power.  But,  my  friends, 
female  suffragists,  I  would  earnestly  ask  you  to  remember 
that  the  men  in  the  Church  who  have  opposed  and  do  op- 
pose reforms  do  so  as  men,  not  as  Christians — do  it  not  be- 
cause of  their  religion,  but  in  spite  of  it.  This  is  proved  by 
the  fact  that  in  those  countries  and  tribes  where  Christianity 
has  no  foothold  woman's  position  is  degraded.  In  ancient 
Rome  and  Greece,  where  secular  culture  reached  its  highest 
point  in  the  old  world,  woman  was  a  slave.  In  Asia, 
Europe,  Africa,  ancient  America  and  the  Islands  of  the  Sea 
she  has  been  and  still  is  treated  as  a  beast.  It  is  not  re- 
ligion, but  the  want  of  it  ;  it  is  the  ignorance  and  brutality 
of  man  that  degrade  woman,  and  her  position  in  Christian 
countries,  compared  with  her  position  in  barbaric  com- 
munities, is  proof  positive  that  if  the  influences  of  Chris- 
tianity have  not  greatly  promoted  they  have  at  least  not  se- 
riously hindered  her  progress.  Let  us  be  reasonable,  there- 
fore, and  render  honor  to  whom  honor  is  due — attribute 
to  human  nature  \\\Q.  sins  it  commits,  and  recognize  the  truth 
and  justice  of  Christ's  teaching,  however  much  it  may  have 
been  misunderstood,  perverted,  misapplied,  or  ignored. 

Whittier's    words,   adapted,   come    to  the   strugglers   for 
woman's  freedom. 

"  God  bless  ye,  sisters— in  the  fight 
Ye' re  waging  now  ;  ye  cannot  fail, 
For  better  is  your  sense  of  right 
Than  kingcraft's  triple  mail. 

"Than  tyrant's  law  or  bigot's  ban, 

More  mighty  is  your  simplest  word  : 
The  free  heart  of  an  honest  man 
Than  crosier  or  the  sword. 

"  The  truths  ye  urge  are  borne  abroad 
By  every  breeze  and  every  tide  ; 
The  voice  of  Nature  and  of  God 
Speaks  out  upon  your  side. 

"The  weapons  which  your  hands  have  found 
Are  those  which  Heaven  itself  has  wrought, 
Light,  Truth,  and  Love  : — your  battle  ground 
The  free  broad  field  of  Thought. 


23S  TOPICS  OF  THE   TIMES. 

'*  O  ye  who,  with  undoubting  eyes, 

Through  present  cloud  and  gathering  storm, 
Behold  the  span  of  Freedom's  skies, 
And  sunshine  soft  and  warm. 

**  Press  bravely  onward  ! — not  in  vain 
Your  generous  trust  in  human  kind  ; 
The  good  which  bloodshed  could  not  gain 
Your  peaceful  zeal  shall  find. 

*' Press  on  !— the  triumph  shall  be  won 
Of  common  rights  and  equal  laws. 
The  glorious  dream  of  Marrington, 
And  Sidney's  good  old  cause. 

**  Blessing  the  cotter  and  the  crown, 

Sweetening  worn  Labor's  bitter  cup  ; 
And  plucking  not  the  highest  down, 
Lifting  the  lowest  up. 

"  Press  on  !-  and  we  who  may  not  share 
The  toil  or  glory  of  your  fight 
May  ask,  at  least,  in  earnest  prayer, 
God's  blessing  on  the  right, ''^ 


Ecclesiastical  Liberty 


BEING  THE 


/ 

DEFENCE  OF  THE  REV.  HOWARD  MacQUEARY 


BEFORE  THE 


ECCLESIASTICAL  COURT 


EPISCOPAL  CHURCH  IN  NORTHERN  OHIO 


AGAINST 


THE  CHARGES  OF  HERESY 


DELIVERED  IN  CLEVELAND,  OHIO,  JANUARY  SEVENTH 

1891 


NEW  YORK 
UNITED    STATES    BOOK    COMPANY 

SUCCESSORS  TO 

JOHN    W.    LOVELL    COMPANY 

150  WORTH  STREET,  COR.  MISSION  PLACE 


PREFACE. 


Cornell  University,  Ithaca,  New  York, 
Jan.  i2th,  1891. 

My  Dear  Mr.  MacQueary  : 

I  have  read  your  speech  carefully  twice,  and  I  congratulate 
you  upon  it  most  heartily.  Excellent  as  your  book  was,  I 
think  that  your  speech  shows  still  greater  power.  It  stirred 
me  deeply.  You  are  rendering  a  great  service  to  religious 
and  thoughtful  men  throughout  the  country,  but  especially 
to  those  in  the  Protestant  Episcopal  Church. 

Your  argument  seems  absolutely  conclusive,  but  I  have 
little  hope  that  it  will  clear  you  before  a  Church  tribunal. 
That  it  will  clear  you  before  the  great  mass  of  thinking  men 
in  our  own  and  other  Churches,  I  am  sure  :  that  it  will  quicken 
liberal  thought  in  the  Church,  I  am  also  sure. 

Your  opponents  little  know  what  they  are  doing  and  what 
you  have  been  endeavoring  to  do.  They  little  know  that  the 
great  danger  is,  that  the  coming  generation  of  thinking  men 
in  the  United  States  will  separate  themselves  entirely  from  all 
Christian  organizations.  If  what  thinking  men  in  the  light 
of  the  dawn  of  the  twentieth  century  can  believe  is  to  be  tied 
by  Church  authority  to  what  such  men  absolutely  cannot, 
will  not,  and  ought  not  to  believe,  then  the  Protestant  Epis- 
copal Church  and  other  Protestant  Churches  in  this  country 
will  be  left  in  very  much  the  same  attitude  toward  the  thought 
of  this  country,  as  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  in  Italy  and 
France  holds  toward  the  thought  of  those  countries. 

I  hope  for  something  better,  and  look  to  you  and  men  like 
you  to  initiate  movements  which  will  bnng  about  a  proper 
union  between  Christianity  and  modern  thought. 


4  PREFACE. 

I  think  so  highly  of  your  speech  that  I  would  like  to  cliculate 
copies  of  it.  I  will  subscribe  for  a  number  of  these,  and  cir- 
culate them  myself,  to  the  amount  of dollars,  and  will 

exert  myself  to  have  others  do  the  like. 

With  sincere  congratulation  and  good  wishes,  I  remain, 
Most  respectfully  yours, 

ANDREW  D.  WHITE. 
The  Rev.  Howard  MacQueary, 
Canton,  Ohio. 

The  above  letter,  which  is  inserted  in  this  preface  by  the 
kind  permission  of  the  writer,  is  one  of  several  requests 
I  have  received  to  publish  the  following  speech,  delivered 
before  the  Ecclesiastical  Court  of  the  Episcopal  Church  of 
Northern  Ohio,  on  the  seventh  and  eighth  of  January,  1891,  in 
Cleveland,  Ohio,  defending  myself  against  the  charges  of 
"  heresy,"  because  I  had  "tjuestioned  the  Virgin  birth  and 
physical  resurrection  of  Jesus  in  a  book  entitled  "  The  Evolu- 
tion of  Man  and  Christianity  "  (D.  Appleton  &  Co.,  New 
York,  publishers). 

It  will  be  seen  at  once  that  the  questions  raised  by  this  trial 
were  of  fundamental  and  lasting  importance,  involving  as 
they  did  a  consideration  of  the  great  principles  of  the  Prot- 
estant Reformation  of  the  Sixteenth  Century, — the  root  ques- 
tions between  Romanism  and  Protestantism.  It  was  at- 
tempted to  narrow  the  issues  to  a  simple  interpretation  of 
Creeds  and  Canon  Law,  but  the  Prosecutor  was  forced  to 
abandon  this  position,  and  in  a  speech  in  reply  to  this  tried  to 
refute  my  argument  from  Scripture.  That  he  was  unsuc- 
cessful may  be  inferred  from  the  fact  that  two  of  the  five 
judges  constituting  the  Court  voted  for  acquittal,  and  men 
like  Dr.  White,  whose  minds  are  free  from  theological  bias, 
consider  the  argument  conclusive.  I  am  satisfied  that  the 
position  here  taken,  namely,  that  the  Bible  is  the  supreme  Rule 
of  Faith  for  all  Protestant  churches,  and  that  individuals  should 
be  allowed  perfect  liberty  of  thought  and  speech  is  absolutely 
valid.  Creeds  in  Protestant  Churches  should  be  open  to  the 
freest  criticism   and  subject  to  periodical  alterations,  and  no 


PREFACE.  5 

man  should  be  expelled  from  the  Church  on  account  of 
opinions  held.  Church  history  shows  that  ecclesiastical  courts 
and  councils  have  again  and  again  erred  and  condemned 
innocent  men.  Observation  proves  that  the  Bible  is  not  in- 
fallible either  in  its  scientific,  historical,  or  even  its  moral  and 
religious  teaching.  There  is  absolutely  no  infallible  guide 
available  in  religious  faith  and  practice,  and  hence  every  one 
who  sincerely  wishes  to  frame  and  fashion  his  life  after  the 
pattern  of  Jesus  Christ's— every  one  who  loves  Him  and  would 
fain  do  Him  service  in  the  pulpit  or  the  parish,  should  be 
cordially  welcomed  into  the  Church  and  ministry.  In  short 
conduct,  not  creed,  should  be  made  the  basis  of  Church 
fellowship,  and  not  until  this  is  done  will  the  Church  do  the 
work  her  Master  intended  her  to  do.  Perhaps  the  day  is  not 
distant  when  these  truths  will  ho.  practically  recognized,  and 
the  Church  may  be  forced  to  reconstruct  her  dogmas  on  a 
more  rational  and  scriptural  basis.  If  so,  it  will  be  well  to 
have  it  generally  known,  among  the  laity  as  well  as  among 
the  clergy,  that  the  Church  has  merely  to  re-assert  the  fun- 
damental principles  of  the  Reformation  and  to  return  to  the 
simplicity  of  the  Apostolic  and  Nicene  Faith. 

It  is  with  the  hope  of  promoting,  in  my  humble  way,  this 
desirable  end  that  I  consent  to  the  publication  ot  the  follow- 
ing speech. 

HOWARD   MACQUEARY. 


ECCLESIASTICAL   LIBERTY. 


Mr.  Chairman  and  Gentlemen  of  the  Ecclesiastical 
Court : 

The  Prosecutor's  speech  reminds  me  of  the  old  story  of  the 
French  king,  who,  with  his  lords  and  gentlemen,  was  mak- 
ing a  tour  through  his  dominions,  and  when  he  came  to  a 
certain  provincial  town  the  deputy  of  the  mayor  came  forth 
to  meet  him  and  began  his  speech"  thus  :  "May  it  please 
your  majesty,  there  are  just  thirteen  reasons  why  his  honor 
the  mayor  cannot  come  out  to  welcome  you  on  this  occasion. 
The  first  is  that  he  is  dead."  When  the  king  heard  this  He 
graciously  excused  the  deputy  from  stating  the  other  twcive 
reasons.  The  Prosecutor's  speech  amounts  to  this  :  The 
doctrines  of  the  Protestant  Episcopal  Church  are  fixed  and 
unquestionable  quantities,  whose  meaning  is  so.. clear  that  a 
wayfaring  man  though  a  fool  cannot  err  therein.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  opinions  of  the  accused  clergyman  are  so 
explicitly  stated  in  his  book,  and  are  so  evidently  contradic- 
tory of  the  doctrines  of  this  Church,  that  he  is  ecclesiastically 
dead,  and  there  is  nothing  for  the  Court  to  do  but  to  bury  him 
out  of  sight,  and  perhaps  erect  over  him  a  modest  monument 
bearing  the  immortal  words  of  Dante  :  "  AH  hope  abandon 
ye  who  enter  here." 

I  shall,  therefore,  aim  to  show  first,  that  the  doctrines  of  this 
Church  are  not  fixed  and  unquestionable,  and  that  their  mean- 
ing is  by  no  means  so  clear  as  the  Prosecutor  would  have  us 
believe.  Secondly,  I  shall  show  that  my  opinions,  rightly 
understood,  are  not  so  contradictory  of  the  doctrines  of  this 
Church  as  to  justify  your  condemnation  of  them. 

'*  There  are  two  sides  to  every  question,"  says  the  popular 


8  ECCLESIASTICAL  LIBERTY. 

proverb  most  truly,  and  at  last  the  time  has  come  when  the 
other  side  of  the  question  now  before  you  may  be  heard  and 
considered.  For  months  my  critics  and  self-constituted 
judges  have  had  things  all  their  own  way.  They  have  not 
only  greatly  misrepresented  and  vehemently  denounced  both 
my  theological  and  ecclesiastical  position,  but  they  have 
attacked  my  moral  character.  They  have  accused  me  of 
violating  solemn  ordination  vows  and  they  have,  with  few 
exceptions,  steadily  refused  to  let  me  refute  their  slanderous 
charges.  They  have  done  this,  too,  knowing  that  they  were 
on  the  popular  side  of  the  question,  knowing  that  thousands 
would  applaud  their  defense  of  self-styled  "  orthodoxy  "  with- 
out ever  taking  the  trouble  to  examine  the  opinions  of  the 
man  they  condemned.  They  have  thus  created  a  widespread 
impression  in  the  Church  and  out  of  it  that  I  was  simply  a 
young,  presumptuous  ignoramus,  who  wanted  to  create  "a 
sensation  "  and  win  "  notoriety  "  by  advocating  erroneous 
and  strange  doctrines. 

Before  beginning  my  defense,  therefore,  I  wish  to  ask  this 
Court  :  Have  you  been  influenced  by  these  criticisms  ?  I 
fear  that  you  have,  for  you  are  not  superhuman,  and  even 
the  most  generous  and  sober-minded  man  must  be  more  or 
less  influenced  by  the  assertions  of  learned  Christian  gentle- 
men, which  are  constantly  and  confidently  reiterated.  But  if 
you  have  lent  a  willing  ear  to  these  criticisms,  then  you  have 
prejudged  this  case  against  me,  and  there  is  no  use  in  my 
proceeding  with  my  defense,  for  even  the  inspired  eloquence 
and  arguments  of  St.  Paul  himself  could  not  overcome  prej- 
udice. But  if  you  have  come  here  determined  to  ignore  the 
aforesaid  criticisms;  if  you  are  resolved  to  look  facts  and 
reasons  in  the  face,  and  accept  the  conclusions  to  which 
they  logically  lead,  regardless  of  consequences  ;  if  you  are 
prepared  to  stem  the  tide  of  popular  opinion  and  to  set  aside 
the  will  of  the  majority  rather  than  do  injustice  to  a  humble 
fellow  creature,  who  is  as  honestly  seeking  to  learn  ana 
speak  the  truth  as  his  condemners  are,  to  say  the  least  of  it, 
then,  indeed,  I  may  hope  for  a  fair  hearing  and  a  just  judg- 
ment. Trusting  that  you  will  give  me  this,  I  proceed  directly 
to  my  defense. 


ECCLESIASTICAL  LIBERTY.  g 

First.  The  first  charge  which  "  the  indictment"  brings 
against  me  is  that  I  have  violated  my  ordination  vows  by 
holding  and  teaching  certain  opinions  specified.  We  must, 
therefore,  examine  the  said  vows  and  ascertain  their  nature 
and  meaning.  The  first  vow  refers  simply  to  the  inward  and 
spiritual  call  to  the  ministerial  office  which  every  candidate 
for   holy  orders  is  supposed  to  experience.  The  second 

vow  reads  as  follows  :  "  Are  you  persuaded  that  the  Holy 
Scriptures  contain  all  doctrine  required  as  necessary  for 
eternal  salvation  through  faith  in  Jesus  Christ  ?  And  are 
you  determined  out  of  the  said  Scriptures  :o  instruct  the 
people  com.mitted  to  your  charge,  and  to  teach  nothing,  as 
necessary  to  eternal  salvation,  but  that  which  you  shall  be 
persuaded  may  be  concluded  and  proved  by  the  Scriptures  ?  " 
The  candidate  answers:  "I  am  so  persuaded,  and  have 
so  determined,  by  God's  grace." 

Third  vow  :  "  Will  you  then  give  your  faithful  diligence 
always  so  to  minister  the  doctrine  and  sacraments  and  the 
discipline  of  Christ  as  the  Lord  hath  commanded  and  this 
Church  hath  received  the  same,  according  to  the  command- 
ments of  God,  so  that  you  may  teach  the  people  committed  to 
your  care  and  charge  with  all  diligence  to  keep  and  observe 
the  same  ?  "  Answer  :  "  I  will  do  so,  by  the  help  of  the 
Lord." 

Now,  this  is  the  vow  which  is  specified  as  that  which  I 
have  violated,  We  must,  therefore,  consider  very  carefully 
its  meaning.  The  vow  is  understood  to  mean  that  the  candi- 
date for  the  ministry  promises  to  accept  and  teach  the  Creeds 
and  Thirty-nine  Articles  of  this  Church  just  as  they  stand  in 
the  Prayer  Book.  On  the  contrary,  I  claim  that  the  doctrine 
of  Christ  as  this  Church  hath  received  the  same  is  that  the 
Holy  Scriptures  contain  all  doctrine  required  as  necessary  to 
salvation,  "  so  that  whatsoever  is  not  read  therein  (to  quote 
the  sixth  article  of  religion)  nor  may  be  proved  thereby  is  not 
to  be  required  of  any  man  that  it  should  be  believed  as  an 
article  of  the  Faith."  In  other  words,  the  doctrine  of  this 
Church  is  that  the  Bible  is  her  Rule  of  Faith  and  Practice, 
and  that  each  individual  must  test  and  interpret  the  creeds 
and  articles  by   Holy  Scripture,  not  Holy  Scripture  by   the 


10  ECCLESIASTICAL  LIBERTY. 

creeds  and  articles.  I  claim  that  the  third  vow  and  all  the 
other  ordination  vows  and  the  articles  themselves  prove  this 
opinion  to  be  correct.  Thus,  note  the  little  word  "then"  in 
the  third  vow.  The  candidate  is  first  asked,  "  Are  you  per- 
suaded that  the  Holy  Scriptures  contain  all  doctrine  required 
as  necessary  to  salvation  ?  "  and  having  answered  in  the  af- 
firmative, he  is  next  asked,  "  Will  you  then  give  your  faithful 
diligence  always  so  to  minister  the  doctrine  of  Christ  as  this 
Church  hath  received  the  same?"  This  little  word  "then" 
refers  us  back  to  the  second  vow  and  shows  us  that  the  doc- 
trine there  stated  is  the  doctrine  of  this  Church,  and  that 
doctrine  is  that  the  Holy  Scriptures  rather  than  the  creeds 
and  articles  contain  all  doctrine  required  as  necessary  to  sal- 
vation. The  sixth  article,  which  I  have  just  quoted,  expresses 
the  same  doctrine,  and  hence  we  must  believe  that  the  Bible 
is  our  Rule  of  Faith,  and  that  our  formulas  must  be  interpreted 
by  the  Scriptures,  not  vice  versa.  This  answers  the  point 
made  by  the  Prosecutor  that  the  sixth  article  restricts  the  pri- 
vate judgment  of  the  individual.  Of  course  it  restricts  it. 
But  to  what  does  it  restrict  it  }  Manifestly  to  the  Scriptures. 
The  other  vows  teach  the  same  doctrine.  Thus,  the  candi- 
date promises  in  the  fourth  vow  to  "  banish  and  drive  away 
from  the  church  all  erroneous  and  strange  doctrines  contrary 
to  " — what  ?  The  creeds  and  articles  ?  No,  but  "  contrary  to 
God's  word."  In  the  fifth  vow  he  promises  to  "  be  diligent  in 
prayer  and  in  reading  the  Holy  Scriptures  and  in  such  other 
studies  as  help  to  a  knowledge  of  the  same."  This  vow  not 
only  asserts  the  right  of  private  judgment,  but  the  duty  ot 
private  judgment.  The  candidate  binds  himself  to  be  diligent 
in  prayer  and  in  such  other  studies  as  help  to  a  knowledge,  not 
of  the  creeds  and  articles,  but  of  the  Holy  Scriptures.  Why 
should  this  promise  be  required  of  him  if  the  Church  has  for- 
ever ascertained  and  settled  the  doctrines  of  Holy  Scripture  in 
her  creeds  and  articles  ?  Why  should  he  be  so  diligent  in  his 
efforts  to  find  out  the  meaning  of  the  Holy  Scriptures,  if  after 
all  he  dare  not  suggest  that  some  article  of  the  Faith  is  erro- 
neous and  needs  restatement  ?  If  my  opponents  be  right  in 
their  interpretation  of  the  doctrine  of  this  Church,  this  fifth 
vow  is  not  only  useless  but  it  is  absurd. 


ECCLESIASTICAL  LIBERTY.  n 

(2)  But  it  is  said  by  the  Prosecutor  and  others  substantially 
that  there  are  many  theories  of  the  theological  schools — theo- 
ries of  inspiration,  the  atonement,  the  sacraments,  etc.,  upon 
which  the  Church  allows  difference  of  opinion,  and  the  minis- 
ter must  test  all  these  by  the  Scriptures,  but  there  is  a  limit 
beyond  which  he  cannot  go,  a  point  at  which  he  must  stop 
and  accept  the  judgment  of  the  Church  in  place  of  his  own, 
and  that  limit  is  found  in  the  Apostles'  and  Nicene  Creeds.  A 
man  may  interpret  the  Thirty-nine  Articles,  or  at  least  those 
which  do  not  touch  the  doctrines  of  the  creeds,  according  to 
Scripture  and  reason,  and  accept  or  reject  them  as  he  chooses, 
but  he  must  not  touch  the  creeds.  I  maintain,  sir,  that  this 
alleged  limitation  to  the  exercise  of  private  judgment  is  not  only 
imaginary,  but  the  contention  is  disapproved  by  the  Church 
herself. 

Thus,  turn  to  the  eighth  article  of  religion  on  the  Creeds, 
and  read  :  "The  Nicene  Creed,  and  that  which  is  commonly 
called  the  Apostles's  Creed,  ought  thoroughly  to  be  received 
and  believed."  Why?  Why,  because  "they  may  be  proved 
by  most  certain  warrants  of  Holy  Scripture."  But  who  is  to 
show  that  they  may  be  so  proved  ?  "  The  Church  in 
General  Convention  assembled,"  it  is  answered.  But  how  will 
such  a  question  ever  be  brought  before  the  General  Conven- 
tion for  its  consideration  t  Manifestly  only  by  the  efforts  of 
some  individual,  perhaps  a  young  parson  in  a  country  or  vil- 
lage parish.  It  is  clear  that  the  Creeds  must  be  tested  by 
Holy  Scripture  by  some  individual,  and  if  he  find  reason  to 
believe  that  any  one  of  their  articles  is  either  erroneous  in 
form  or  in  substance,  it  is  his  duty  imposed  upon  him  by  the 
Church  herself,  to  say  so  publicly,  and  let  the  question  be 
fully  discussed,  and  then  submit  it  to  the  General  Convention 
for  its  consideration.  Suppose  he  were  to  act  otherwise. 
Suppose,  for  instance,  that  I  had  said  nothing  publicly  about 
another  interpretation  or  a  restatement  of  the  articles  of  the 
Creed  on  the  birth  and  resurrection  of  Christ,  but  had  waited 
quietly  until  I  had  been  elected  a  delegate  to  the  General 
Convention  (or  perhaps  a  Bishop — I  might  have  waited  along 
time)  and  had  then  arisen  in  Convention  and  moved  that  the 
words    "  Or  born  of  Joseph  and  Mary"  be  inserted  in  the 


12  ECCLESIASTICAL  LIBERTY. 

margin  of  the  Prayer  Book  as  a  substitute  when  preferred,  for 
the  words  "  born  of  the  Virgin  Mary."  This  suggested  al- 
teration in,  or  addition  to,  the  creed  would  be  of  a  piece  with 
the  alternate  form  of  the  article  on  the  descent  into  hell.  But 
what  sort  of  reception  would  such  a  proposition  meet  with 
in  the  General  Convention  ?  Why,  unless  there  are  many 
more  "  heretics  "  in  the  Church  than  is  generally  supposed, such 
a  proposition  would  be  greeted  with  groans,  and  the  mover  of 
it  would  be  considered  either  a  fool  or  a  "  heretic  "  who  should 
be  dealt  with — in  this  manner.  That,  sir,  would  be  the 
result  of  any  attempt  to  alter  the  formulas  of  this  Church 
without  first  discussing  them  among  individuals  and  before 
the  Church  at  large.  Is  not  this  the  method  adopted  by  the 
Presbyterians  in  their  attempts  to  revise  their  Confession  of 
Faith  "i  Is  it  not  the  method  we  adopted  in  our  recent  revision 
of  the  Prayer  Book  ?  Is  it  not  the  method  adopted  in  effect- 
ing an  alteration  in,  or  an  amendment  to,  the  Constitution  of 
the  United  States  ?  Think  of  the  tremendous  agitation  of  the 
negro  question  before  the  public  mind  before  the  fifteenth 
amendment  could  be  passed  by  Congress  !  And  suppose 
that  amendment  had  never  been  passed  :  Would  the  promo- 
ters of  it  have  been  condemned  and  executed  as  anarchists  ? 
Would  they  have  been  deprived  of  any  of  the  rights  of  citi- 
zens ?  I  trow  not.  But  they  would  have  been  allowed  to 
hold  their  opinions  and  exercise  the  functions  of  a  public 
office,  if  elected  thereto,  just  as  we  permit  men  who  now 
believe  in  Womans  Suffrage  or  the  Single  Tax  or  Socialism 
to  hold  public  office. 

The  twentieth  article  of  religion,  on  the  authority  of  the 
Church,  says  :  "  The  Church  hath  power  to  decree  rights  or 
ceremonies,  and  authority  in  controversies  of  faith  ;  and  yet  it 
is  not  lawful  for  the  Church  to  ordain  anything  that  is  contrary 
to  God's  .word  written  "  ....  and  "  as  it  ought  not  to  decree 
anything  against  the  same,  so  besides  the  same  ought  it  not 
to  enforce  anything  to  be  believed  for  necessity  of  salva- 
tion." .  .  .  Again,  I  ask  :  Who  is  to  decide  whether  the 
Church  has  or  not  ordained  things  contrary  to  the  Scriptures  ? 
How  will  this  question  ever  be  brought  before  the  Church  for 
Us  consideration  if  he  who  raises  it  is  at  once  excommunicated  ? 


ECCLESIASTICAL  LIBERTY.  1 3 

Bishop  Harold  Browne  in  his  commentary  on  this  article 
distinctly  says  :  "  The  authority  of  the  Church  is  not  absolute 
and  supreme.  The  decisions  of  the  Church  must  always  be 
guided  by  and  be  dependent  on  the  statements  and  injunctions 
of  the  written  word  of  God," 

It  is  plain  then,  sir,  that  the  doctrine  of  this  Church  is  that 
the  Scriptures  are  our  supreme  guide,  and  that  each  one  of 
her  children  is  bound  to  interpret  both  her  creeds  and  arti- 
cles by  Holy  Scripture,  and  suggest  any  alteration  either  in 
their  interpretation  or  their  substance  which  may  seem  to  him 
necessary. 

(3)  The  chief  reason  why  the  truth  of  this  contention  is  not 
universally  admitted  is  that  intimated  by  the  Prosecutor,  that 
the  creeds  were  established  by  the  first  General  Councils  and 
have  been  believed  by  the  vast  majority  of  Christians  from 
that  day  to  this.  It  is  tacitly  assumed  and  often  explicitly 
asserted  that  the  first  General  Councils  of  the  Church  were 
infallible  and  their  decrees  therefore  unalterable.  Yet  this 
idea  is  flatly  contradicted  by  the  articles  of  this  Church. 
Thus,  the  twenty-first  article  says  :  "  Forasmuch  as  they 
(General  Councils)  be  an  assembly  of  men  v/hereof  all  be  not 
governed  with  the  spirit  and  word  of  God,  they  may  err,  and 
sometimes  have  erred,  in  things  pertaining  to  God.  Where- 
fore things  ordained  by  them  as  necessary  to  salvation  have 
neither  strength  nor  authority,  unless  it  may  be  declared  that 
they  be  taken  out  of  Holy  Scripture."  The  American  revisers 
of  1789  omitted  this  article  from  the  Prayer  Book  when  they 
adapted  it  to  the  changed  condition  of  the  Church  after  the 
Revolution.  But  they  state  in  a  note  that  they  did  so  "  be- 
cause it  was  partly  of  a  local  and  civil  nature,  and  is  provided 
for,  as  to  the  remaining  parts  of  it,  in  other  articles."  They 
refer,  of  course,  to  the  nineteenth  article,  which  says  :  "  The 
Church  of  Jerusalem,  Alexandria,  Antioch,  and  Rome  (the 
very  Churches  which  formed  the  first  General  Councils)  have 
erred,  not  only  in  their  living  and  manner  of  ceremonies,  but 
also  in  matters  of  Faith."  Hence  it  is  plain  that  "  this  Church" 
rejects  the  infallibility  of  the  first  General  Councils,  and  con- 
sequently the  infallibility  of  their  decisions.  We  are  just  as 
much  bound  by  the  doctrines  of  this  Church  to  test  her  creeds 


l^  ECCLESIASTICAL  LIBERTY. 

by  Scripture  and  reason  as  we  are  to  test  any  one  of  the  Thirty- 
nine  Articles.  I  am  here  reminded  of  the  Prosecutor's  state- 
ment that  we  have  no  right  to  appeal  to  one  or  two  of  the 
Thirty-nine  Articles  unless  we  accept  all  of  them.  What,  then, 
is  the  use  of  having  the  sixth  article  among  the  thirty-nine 
if  we  cannot  appeal  to  that  for  the  purpose  of  rejecting  what 
may  seem  to  be  unscriptural  in  another  .''  May  we  not  appeal 
to  one  article  of  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  for  the 
purpose  of  interpreting  the  meaning  of  another  article  or 
clause  of  the  constitution  ?  May  we  not  appeal  to  the  article 
on  amendments  for  the  purpose  of  altering  the  Constitution  ? 
It  seems  to  me  that  that  would  be  doing  what  the  Constitution 
requires  of  us.  I  confess  I  cannot  see  the  force  of  the  Prosecu- 
tor's argument  on  that  point.  Perhaps  he  may  be  able  to 
make  the  point  more  clear  later  on. 

(4)  It  is  quite  as  easy  to  refute  the  popular  idea  that  because 
the  majority  have  believed  and  do  believe  certain  things,  they 
are  necessarily — or  at  least  presumably — true  ;  indeed,  the 
fact  that  the  majority  believes  a  certain  thing  is  sometimes 
presumptive  proof  that  it  is  false,  for  the  majority  of  men  do 
not  think  and  are  easily  influenced  by  demagogues.  At  any 
rate,  this  notion  is  easily  refuted  in  the  present  case,  for  if  the 
belief  of  the  majority  is  true,  then  Christianity,  Protestantism, 
and  the  claims  of  the  Episcopal  Church  are  all  false.  The 
followers  of  Buddha,  Confucius,  Zoroaster,  and  Mohammed 
far  outnumber  the  disciples  of  Christ ;  and  many  of  these 
devotees  of  what  we  consider  false  religions  are  more  than  a 
match  for  Christians  in  intellectual  power.  At  one  time,  the 
Incarnation  or  Divinity  of  Christ  was  all  but  universally  denied 
by  Christians,  and  then  it  was  Athanasius,  a  young  archdeacon 
of  Alexandria,  against  the  world.  When  Luther  began  the 
Reformation  it  was  Luther  against  Rome  ;  and  the  Pope 
actually  laughed  at  "  Brother  Martin,"  but  his  laughter  was 
soon  turned  into  mourning,  and  we  believe  that  "  Brother 
Martin"  was  right,  the  majority  wrong.  The  Roman  Cath- 
olics to-day  urge  this  very  fact — the  fact  that  their  Church  is 
the  oldest  and  largest  church— against  the  claims  of  Protes- 
tantism, but  we  reject  their  contention  as  false.  The  Epis- 
copal Church  is  much— very  much— smaller  than  the  great 


ECCLESIASTICAL  LIBERTY.  i^ 

Lutheran,  Presbyterian,  Methodist,  Baptist  and  other  Re- 
formed Churches,  yet  it  actually  had  the  courage  a  short  time 
ago  to  ask  these  bigger  sisters  to  accept  its  "  Historic  Epis- 
copate ;  and  although  this  offer  has  not  been,  and  is  not  likely 
to  be,  accepted,  yet  we  believe  (none  more  firmly  than  I  do) 
that  "from  the  Apostles'  time  there  have  been  these  orders  of 
ministers  in  Christ's  Church — Bishops,  Priests  and  Deacons." 
And  so  you  see  that  none  of  us  really  accept  the  opinion  of 
the  majority  as  infallible,  but  often  reject  it  as  erroneous. 
Every  departure  from  accepted  opinions  is,  of  necessity, 
inaugurated  by  one  or  a  few  individuals.  Had  Christ  and 
St.  Paul  bowed  to  the  will  of  the  majority,  there  would  have 
been  no  Christianity  in  the  world  to-day.  Had  Athanasius 
bowed  to  the  will  of  the  majority,  the  Church  would  now  be 
Unitarian  instead  of  Trinitarian.  Had  Luther  and  the  other 
Reformers  bowed  to  the  will  of  the  majority,  there  would  be 
no  Protestantism.  Had  Galileo  and  Bruno  and  Kepler  and 
Copernicus  and  Newton  and  Lyell  and  Darwni  bowed  to  the 
opinion  of  the  majority,  we  should  still  be  believing  that  the 
earth  is  flat  and  stationary,  that  the  sun  moves  round  the 
earth,  that  the  world  was  created  in  six  days  of  twenty-four 
hours  each,  and  that  the  first  man  was  made  out  of  mud  and 
had  life  and  mind  blown  into  him  through  his  nostrils.  Had 
Columbus  bowed  to  the  will  of  the  majority,  this  glorious  land 
of  plenty  and  freedom  would  not  have  been  discovered  when 
it  was.  These  are  some  of  the  most  familiar  and  illustrious 
examples  of  individuals  who  have  had  the  courage  to  face  the 
world  and  reject  the  will  of  the  majority.  In  citing  them  I, 
of  course,  do  not  for  one  moment  think  of  classing  myself 
with  them,  for  I  am  not  worthy  to  unloose  their  shoes'  latchet  ; 
but  I  simply  cite  facts  of  history  to  show  that  the  tyranny  of 
the  majority,  if  it  had  not  been  rejected  in  the  great  crises  of 
the  world's  history,  would  have  deprived  us  of  the  greatest 
blessings  we  enjoy  to-day.  These  examples  show  that  the 
world  is  frequently,  and  often  most  fortunately,  ruled  by  a 
small  minority. 

But,  Mr.  Chairman,  while  I  thus  reject  the  infallibility  of  the 
first  General  Councils  and  of  the  majority — or  rather  while 
the  Church  rejects  it — I  am  willing  to  bow  to  the  authority  of 


J 5  ECCLESIASTICAL  LIBERTY. 

the  Council  of  Nice— that  great  Council  that  formulated  and 
established  A.D.  325  the  great  Catholic  Creed  of  Christendom. 
Will  this  Court  bow  to  this  august  and  venerable  authority  ? 
Surely  the  Church  of  Ohio  will  not  have  the  courage  to  reject 
the  decree  of  the  greatest  Ecclesiastical  Council  that  ever 
assembled  !  But  if  not — if  you  are  willing  to  accept  the 
authority  of  the  Council  of  Nice,  then  you  must  acquit  me  at 
once,  for  that  Council — the  Council  whose  very  object  was  to 
define  the  doctrine  of  the  Incarnation — that  Council  which 
was  summoned  and  opened  by  one  of  the  greatest  Roman 
Emperors  after  Caesar— that  Council  in  which  sat  Athanasius, 
"  the  Father  of  Orthodoxy,"  who  formulated  its  Creed — that 
Council  actually  oinitted  from  the  Creed  it  established  the 
article  on  the  Virgin  Birth  of  Jesus  and  did  not  define  the 
nature  of  His  resurrection.  If  you  will  turn  to  the  article  on 
"  Creeds"  in  the  Encyclopedia  Britannica,  which  was  written 
by  that  eminent^  scholar  and  theologian,  the  Very  Rev.  Prin- 
cipal Tulloch,  you  will  find  the  original  form  of  the  Nicene 
Creed.  It  reads  as  follows  :  "  We  believe  in  one  God,  Father 
Almighty,  maker  of  all  things  visible  and  invisible  and  in 
one  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  the  Son  of  God,  begotten  of  the  Father, 
only  begotten,  that  is  to  say,  of  the  substance  of  the  Father, 
God  of  God,  Light  of  Light,  Very  God  of  Very  God,  begot- 
ten, not  made,  being  of  one  substance  with  the  Father,  by 
whom  all  things  were  made,  both  things  in  heaven  and  things 
on  earth,  who  for  us  men  and  for  our  salvation  came  down, 
and  was  made  flesh,  made  man,  suffered  and  rose  again  on 
the  third  day,  went  up  into  the  heavens,  and  is  to  come  again 
to  judge  the  quick  and  the  dead,  and  in  the  Holy  Ghost."  Dr. 
Schaff  in  his  large  works  on  "The  Creeds  of  Christendom" 
Vol.  I.  pp.,  28  and  29  gives  the  same  Creed,  and  you  will 
observe  that  not  one  word  is  said  in  it  about  the  Virgin 
Birth  or  the  nature  of  the  resurrection  of  Jesus. 

These  clauses  were  gradually  added  to  this  simple  formula, 
not  by  councils,  but  by  individuals,  in  order  to  meet  various 
"  heresies,"  until  finally  the  Creed  assumed  its  present  form. 
•'  Even  in  the  Council  of  Chalcedon,  the  fourth  General  Coun- 
cil," says  Principal  Tulloch,  which  met  in  A.  D.  481,  "when 
the  Creed  existed  in  its  enlarged  form,  there  was  still  a  large 


ECCLESIASTICAL  LIBERTY,  1 7 

number  of  Bishops  who  greatly  preferred  the  Creed  in  its 
original  and  simpler  form,  and  it  appears  long  to  have  main- 
tained its  ground  alongside  of  the  others  in  the  Eastern 
Church." 

It  strikes  me,  Mr.  Chairman,  that  I  have  pretty  respectable 
authority  to  sustain  my  position — the  Council  of  Nice,  whose 
great  object  was  to  define  what  was  necessary  as  a  creed  of 
the  Church,  and  a  great  number  of  Bishops  at  the  Council  ot 
Chalcedon,  and  the  usage  of  the  early  Eastern  Church,  and 
last,  but  not  least,  Athanasius,  the  Father  of  Orthodoxy. 
Again,  I  ask,  therefore,  will  this  Court  bow  to  the  authority 
of  the  Council  of  Nice  and  the  early  Church  ?  I  wish  that 
some  representatives  of  the  so-called  "Catholic  Party"  in  our 
Church — i.e.,  the  extreme  High  Church  Party — were  present, 
for  these  good  brethren  are  forever  appealing  to  the  early 
Church  for  authority  for  the  revival  of  Romanistic  rights. 
Will  the  "  Catholics  "  bow  to  the  authority  of  the  early  Church 
and  the  Council  of  Nice  }  If  so,  then  let  them  stop  abusing 
me  and  condemning  me  as  a  "  heretic."  They  want  to  have 
prayers  for  the  dead,  and  they  appeal  to  the  early  Church  for 
sanction  of  this  custom.  For  my  own  part,  I  will  not  quarrel 
with  them,  if  they  want  to  pray  for  their  dead,  because  it  can 
do  no  harm,  and  if  the  wicked  will  have  a  chance  after  death 
for  salvation,  our  "  Catholic"  brethren  maybe  able  to  pray 
some  of  their  "  heretical  "  friends  out  of  purgatory.  But  I 
will  quarrel  with  them  if,  after  I  accord  them  the  right  and 
privilege  they  claim,  they  refuse  to  grant  me  the  same  liberty, 
and  I  will  quarrel  with  them  till  dooms-day.  Will  the 
•*  Catholics"  bow  to  the  authority  of  Nice  and  the  early 
Church  ?  Then  let  them  join  us,  the  real  orthodox  brethren. 
Not  only  did  the  Council  of  Nice  not  insert  the  article  on  the 
Virgin  Birth  among  the  necessary  Articles  of  Faith,  but 
Justin  Martyr,  in  the  48th  chapter  of  his  M'ell-known  "  Dia- 
logue with  Trypho,"  tells  us  that  many  Christians  in  his  day 
— about  140  A.  D. — believed  that  Christ  was  "born  7nan  of 
man  " — that  is,  that  He  had  an  earthly  father — but  did  he  there- 
fore condemn  them  as  "  heretics  "  and  propose  their  excom- 
munication from  the  Church  .?  No  ;  but  he  told  Trypho 
exactly  what  I  have  been  telling  Trypho's  modern  represen- 


1 8  ECCLESIASTICAL  LIBERTY, 

tatives,  that,  although  he  (Justin)  did  not  agree  with  those 
rejectors  ot  the  Virgin  Birth,  yet  it  was  not  necessary  to  the 
Incarnation,  and  so  in  addition  to  the  Council  of  Nice  and 
St.  Athanasius  and  many  bishops  in  the  Council  ot  Chalcedon 
and  the  usage  of  the  early  Eastern  Church,  I  have  the  sup- 
port of  the  first  great  apologist  of  Christianity  in  advocating 
the  liberty  of  belief  I  claim. 

It  is  true  that  the  Creeds  found  in  the  writings  of  Irenaeus — 
the  latter  part  of  the  second  century — and  Tertullian  and  other 
•'  fathers  "  have  the  article  on  the  Virgin  Birth,  but  Principal 
Tulloch  well  says,  "  That  these  creeds  were  not  of  uni- 
versal authority  —  they  were  the  confessions  of  individual 
Churches."  "  There  was  (he  says)  no  rule  of  faith  universally 
accepted  by  the  Church  or  authoritatively  imposed  by  any 
Catholic  body  up  to  the  time  of  the  Nicene  Council.  Each 
church  seems  to  have  had  its  own  regula  veritatis  (rule  of 
truth)  ox  confessio  fidei — confession  of  faith,"  and  as  I  have  just 
shown,  the  Council  of  Nice  did  not  even  mention  the  points  on 
which  I  am  arraigned  for  heresy.  The  Apostles'  Creed,  as  is 
well  known,  is  of  a  much  later  date  than  the  Nicene  Creed. 
"  The  Apostles'  Creed,"  says  Tulloch,  "is  not  found  in  any- 
thing like  its  present  form  till  four  centuries  after  the  faith  of 
the  Eastern  Church  was  definitely  settled  in  the  Nicene  sym- 
bol" — that  is,  about  the  middle  of  the  eighth  century. 

Will  the  Church  in  Ohio,  then,  follow  the  example  of  the 
modern  so-called  "  Catholics,"  and  especially  the  example 
of  the  Reformers  of  the  sixteenth  century,  and  decide  the 
question  now  before  you  by  the  authority  of  the  Nicene  Coun- 
cil and  the  early  Church  .?  If  so,  then  you  must  fully  acquit 
me. 

But  it  will  be  said  ;  "  Although  the  original  form  of  the 
Nience  Creed  omitted  the  article  on  the  Virgin  Birth  and  all 
definition  of  the  nature  of  the  resurrection  of  Jesus,  yet  its 
present  form  contains  these  articles  and  the  second  and  fourth 
of  the  Thirty-nine  Articles  clearly  define  these  dogmas."  That 
is  true,  and  I  will  consider  the  force  of  that  objection  pres- 
ently, but  that  has  nothing  to  do  with  the  fact  now  under 
consideration.  I  am  now  considering  simply  the  fact  that  this 
Church  rejects  ecclesiastical  infallibility  in  general  and   the 


ECCLESIASTICAL  LIBERTY.  jq 

infallibility  of  the  first  General  Councils  in  particular.  But 
I  am  urging  that,  even  if  she  accepted  the  authority  of  the 
early  Church  and  Councils,  she  could  not  by  such  authority 
condemn  me  as  a  heretic.  In  other  words,  I  am  saying  that 
if  this  Court  condemns  me  as  a  heretic  it  will  thereby  condemn 
the  Council  of  Nice,  St.  Athanasius,  a  great  number  of  Bishops 
in  the  Council  of  Chalcedon,  the  early  Eastern  Church,  a 
number  of  Christians  mentioned  by  Justin  Martyr,  and  the 
great  apologist  himself,  as  heretical.  You  will  reject  the 
authority  appealed  to  by  the  English  Reformers  and  the 
modern  Catholics.  That  is  the  point  I  am  urging.  I  am 
claiming  primitive  and  most  respectable  authority  for  my 
position,  and  I  submit  that  it  is  worthy  of  consideration. 

Furthermore.  Let  it  be  distinctly  understood  that,  while 
I  thus  go  back  to  the  very  foundation  of  Christianity,  and  to 
the  very  root-questions  between  Romanism  and  Protestant- 
ism, I  am  not  now  advocating  any  re-statement  or  re-con- 
struction of  the  creeds  and  articles  of  this  Church.  I  think — 
indeed,  I  am  quite  sure  from  the  past  few  months'  experience — 
that  the  Church  is  probably  unprepared  by  several  hundred 
years  for  any  such  re-construction  of  her  formulas  ;  but  I  am 
simply  showing  that  it  she  were  ready  and  if  such  a  re-con- 
struction were  deemed  necessary,  she  would  have  the  authority 
ofthe  early  Church  and  Councils  to  support  her  action,  as  well 
as  the  example  ofthe  Reformers.  I  am  simply  discussing  the 
nature  of  the  great  basic  principles  of  "this  Church"  in 
order  to  show  that,  in  exercising  the  right  of  private  judg- 
ment, I  am  simply  discharging  the  obligations  I  assumed  at 
ordination,  and  I  am  insisting  that  the  articles  of  our  Church 
and  the  examples  of  the  Reformers  and  the  decisions  of  the 
early  Church  and  Councils  all  sustain  me  in  claiming  for 
individuals  such  liberty  of  belief  and  speech  as  I  claim  for 
myself.  I  am  not  therefore,  advocating  an  ecclesiastical 
revolution,  but  simply  asking  for  liberty  to  interpret  the  for- 
mulas of  this  Church  somewhat  differently  from  what  some 
others  do.  In  short,  I  am  doing  exactly  what  a  member  of 
Congress  does  when  he  proposes  to  construe  some  clause  in 
the  Constitution  differently  from  what  it  has  been  generally 
construed.     I  am  no  ecclesiastical  anarchist  rebelling  against 


20  ECCLESIASTICAL  LIBERTY, 

all  authority  and  proposing  a  complete  overthrow  of  the 
constitution  of  this  Church,  but  a  loyal  son,  defending  her 
great  principles  and  claiming  simply  the  liberty  that  she  her- 
self grants. 

Mr.  Chairman,  it  is  truly  astonishing  that  a  clergyman  in 
the  "  Protestant  Episcopal  Church,"  in  the  closing  years  of 
the  19th  century,  should  have  to  make  such  a  plea  ?  This 
Church,  which  is  the  mother  of  English  Protestantism,  and, 
bears  the  evidence  of  the  fact  in  her  very  name — this  Church, 
whose  Articles  were,  many  of  them,  taken  from  the  Augs- 
burg Confession  of  Faith,  which  was  the  summary  of  the 
opinions  of  the  man  who  dared  burn  the  papal  bull  and  alone 
face  the  Lords  Temporal  and  Spiritual  in  the  Diet  of  Worms — 
this  Church,  whose  loyal  sons  died  amid  the  flames  of  Oxford 
and  Smithfield  for  the  sake  of  religious  taith  and  freedom — 
this  Church,  whose  grand  old  Bishops,  in  the  6th  century  re- 
jected with  disdain  the  proposals  of  Pope  Gregory,  when  he 
sent  Augustine  and  his  Monks  to  England  to  preach  the  Rom- 
ish faith,  and  rather  than  submit  to  this  ecclesiastical  power 
retired  with  their  flocks  into  the  wilderness  of  Wales — this 
Church,  which  claims,  (and  I  believe  rightly)  to  have  been 
founded  by  the  great  Apostle  of  the  Gentiles,  the  first  of  Protes- 
tants, after  Christ,  who  in  his  immortal  epistle  to  the  Galatians 
bade  them  "stand  fast  in  the  liberty  wherewith  Christ  had  set 
them  free  "  as  against  the  tyrannous  yoke  which  a  Judaising 
hierarchy  of  the  day  would  have  imposed  upon  the  necks  of 
the  disciples — this  is  the  Church  which  will  ignore  the  teach- 
ings of  apostles  and  martyrs  the  example  of  the  primitive 
church  and  the  doctrines  of  Reformers,  and  condemn  a  man 
for  heresy,  because,  forsooth,  he  dares  exercise  his  God- 
given  conscience  and  reason  and  defend  the  principles  of  the 
Church  he  loves?  Depend  upon  it,  sir,  if  this  be  done  the 
day  is  not  distant  when  the  memory  of  the  action  will  bring 
a  flush  of  shame  to  the  cheeks  of  all  loyal  Churchmen  and 
earnest  Christians. 

I  have  thus,  I  trust,  shown  that  "  the  doctrine  of  Christ  as 
this  Church  hath  received  the  same  "  is  that  Holy  Scripture, 
not  Creed  or  article,  is  our  Rule  of  Faith  and  Practice,  and 
that  our  formulas  must  be  interpreted  by  the  Scriptures,  not 


ECCLESIASTICAL  LIBERTY.  2  I 

vice  versa.  Observe  the  contention  :  It  is  not  that  the 
Creeds  and  articles  must  be  set  aside  or  ignored,  but  that 
they  must  be  interpreted  by  the  Scriptures  and  surely  this 
court,  whatever  may  be  its  respect  for  the  Creeds  and  articles 
will  not  place  them  above  the  inspired  Scriptures. 

(6).  But  it  will  be  said — it  has  been  said — that  I  reject 
the  Scriptures,  and  I  must  therefore  refute  this  charge,  which 
is  easily  done.  On  page  i37  of  my  "  Evolution  of  Man  and 
Christianity  "  I  say  :  "  It  may  appear  to  some  that  this  (my) 
view  (of  the  Gospels)  completely  destroys  the  historic  value 
of  the  books  in  question.  To  which  I  would  reply:  Not  at 
all ;  it  merely  destroys  a  false  theory  of  inspiration — the  ver- 
bal theory.  It  merely  asserts  that  there  may  be  some  chaff 
mingled  with  the  wheat,  which  must  be  carefully  separated 
from  the  wheat,  but  it  declares  emphatically  that  the  wheat 
is  there."  That  is  my  view  of  the  authority  of  the  Scriptures. 
I  take  it  that  I  need  hardly  tell  this  court  that  this  Church 
has  no  authorized  theory  of  inspiration  and  that  she  allows 
her  clergy  liberty  to  investigate  the  origin  and  authorship  of 
the  books  of  Scripture.  Witness  every  theological  seminary 
in  our  land,  the  papers  read  by  theological  professors  in  the 
recent  Church  Congress  in  Philadelphia,  Nov.,  1890,  and  all 
the  writings  of  modern  apologists. 

I  have  high  authority  for  rejecting  the  theory  of  verbal 
Inspiration.  In  the  celebrated  trial  of  the  Rev.  Dr.  Rowland 
Williams  for  rejecting  the  inspiration  of  Scripture,  the  Privy 
Council  of  the  Church  of  England  decided  (I  quote  the  exact 
words),  "  That  it  is  not  penal  in  a  clergyman  to  deny  the 
proposition  that  every  part  of  every  book  of  Holy  Scripture 
was  written  under  the  inspiration  of  the  Holy  Spirit  and  is 
the  word  of  God,  that  proposition  not  being  found  in  the 
Articles  or  formularies  of  the  Church."  Accordingly  Dr. 
Williams  was  acquitted.  This  decision  was  a  heavy  and 
authoritative  blow  to  the  verbal  infallibility  of  the  Scriptures 
and  has  many  important  and  far  reaching  implications. 

Remembering,  then,  that  I  accept  the  authority  of  the 
Scriptures  and  merely  reject  an  unauthorized  and  false  theory 
of  inspiration  and  interpretation  let  us  pass  to  a  consideration 


22  ECCLESIASTICAL  LIBERTY. 

of  the  specific  charges   of  heresy  which   the  "  indictment " 
brings  against  me. 

I.  I  am  charged  with  a  rejection  of  the  Virgin  Birth  and 
Bodily  Resurrection  of  Jesus.  In  answering  these  charges  I 
wish,  first  of  all,  to  clear  up  certain  popular  misrepresenta- 
tions of  my  views,  for  I  have  been  made  out  a  greater  heretic 
than  I  am,  and  I  cannot  clearly  answer  the  indictment  with- 
out explaining  what  I  do  believe,  (i)  First,  it  has  been  said 
repeatedly  that  I  reject  the  Incarnation  or  Divinity  of  Christ. 
This  is  false.  On  page  286  of  my  book  I  say,  "  Defining  the 
Divinity  of  Jesus  Christ  to  consist  in  a  perfect  union  of  His 
human  spirit  with  the  Divine,  we  undertake  to  prove  that  this 
union  existed."  That  is  simply  another  way  of  expressing 
the  doctrine  of  the  Incarnation  established  by  the  Council  of 
Nice  and  embodied  in  our  second  Article  of  Religion  which 
says,  "  Two  whole  and  perfect  natures,  that  is  to  say,  the 
Godhead  and  manhood,  were  joined  together  in  one  Person, 
never  to  be  divided,  whereof  is  one  Christ,  very  God  and 
very  man."  This  I  believe.  I  think  that  the  mode  of  Christ's 
birth  and  the  fact  of  His  divine  character  are  two  entirely 
different  questions,  and  the  Nicene  Council,  St.  Paul  and  the 
writer  of  the  fourth  Gospel  held  the  same  view,  since  they  all 
accepted  the  Incarnation,  but  said  nothing  of  the  Virgin  Birth. 
In  modern  times  many  earnest  Christians  and  theologians 
have  done  the  same.  Coleridge  is  an  instance.  He,  though 
not  a  clergyman,  was  a  member  of  the  Church  of  England, 
an  earnest  Christian,  a  staunch  defender  of  the  doctrine  of  the 
Trinity  and  a  teacher  of  many  eminent  theologians,  and  he 
thought  that  the  doctrine  of  the  Virgin  Birth  not  only  could 
not  be  proved  and  was  not  necessary  to  the  Incarnation,  but 
he  said  that  it  actually  "  doth  weaken  and  bedim  the  evi- 
dence "  of  this  great  fact.  A  few  days  ago  I  received  a  letter 
from  a  clergyman  in  the  Church  in  which  he  said  :  "  I  grad- 
uated at  Kenyon  College,  Professor  L.  W.  Bancroft  held  a 
professorship  in  the  theological  seminary  at  Gambler  then. 
He  recommended  students  to  read  Coleridge's  works.  My 
reading  Coleridge  was  due  to  this.  We  were  never  informed 
that  Coleridge  was  a  heretical  person  ;  but  it  would  appear 


ECCLESIASTICAL  LIBERTY. 


23 


that  Coleridge  can  no  longer  have  any  standing  in  the  Ohio 
Church,  neither  can  those  who  adopt  his  views." 

Theological  professors  should  be  careful  what  books  they 
recommend  to  theological  students  or  the  Church  will  soon 
be  tilled  with  "  heretics."  The  only  way  to  prevent  this 
terrible  calamity  is  to  prohibit  them  from  reading  "the  other 
side  "  altogether. 

Thus,  it  is  clear,  I  trust,  that  one  may  accept  the  Incarna- 
tion or  Divinity  of  Christ,  whether  he  accepts  His  Virgin 
Birth  or  not.  (2)  But,  secondly,  it  has  been  said  that  I  reject 
the  miraculous  conception  of  our  Lord.  This,  also,  is  false. 
On  page  220  of  my  book  I  say  :  "  I  hold,  with  Keim  and  with 
many  of  the  evolutionists,  that  as  great  a  miracle  was  wrought 
at  the  birth  of  Jesus  as  was  wrought  when  life  or  self-con- 
scious mind,  was  introduced  on  our  globe  ;  a  distinct  '  leap' 
was  made  in  the  process  of  spiritual  evolution  at  His  birth, 
whereby  the  goal  toward  which  humanity  is  moving  was 
reached  in  one  case.  Jesus  was  therefore  '  the  possibility  of 
the  human  race  made  real.'  "  In  other  words,  I  believe  that 
Jesus  was  a  sinless  being — that  He  had  a  perfect  moral  and 
spiritual  nature  and  that  His  perfect  nature  was  produced  by 
a  special  operation  of  the  Divine  Spirit.  The  human  spirit 
of  Jesus  was  infused  into  a  human  body  by  a  special  exertion 
of  the  Divine  will — that  is,  He  was  "  Conceived  by  the  Holy 
Ghost "  acting  along  the  lines  of  natural  generation,  albeit 
on  a  higher  plane  than  that  of  His  ordinary  action.  A  per- 
fect man  would  be  a  moral  miracle,  and  believing,  as  I  do,  in 
Christ's  sinlessness,  I  must  believe  that  it  was  due  to  the  God 
within  Him.  I  therefore  differ  from  many  (not  all)  theo- 
logians simply  in  interpreting  this  article  of  the  Creed.  I  hold, 
and  will  presently  show  that  there  are  two  views  of  Christ's 
birth  in  the  New  Testament,  one  of  which  assigns  HIt!  only 
one  earthly  parent,  another  giving  Him  two  parents,  and 
therefore  we  must  make  a  choice,  and  exercising  the  liberty 
which  the  Church  gives  me,  I  claim  that  I  may  adopt  either 
one  of  these  views  which  seems  to  me  the  more  reasonable, 
probable  and  credible.  1  further  hold  that  we  have  Scrip- 
tural authority  for  the  use  of  theivord  "  Virgin  "  in  the  sense 
of  "young  woman"  simply,    married    or  unmarried.     It  is 


24  ECCLESIASTICAL  LIBERTY. 

well  known  to  all  scholars  that  the  word  as  it  is  used  in 
Isaiah  vii.  14,  is  held  to  mean  this  by  many  of  the  ablest 
lexicographers,  and  Isaiah's  prophecy  forms  the  basis  of  the 
Gospel  account  ot  Christ's  birth  and  the  article  in  the  Creeds, 
It  is  evident  from  the  15th  and  i6th  verses  of  Isaiah  vii.  that 
the  Prophet  was  speaking  of  some  woman  of  his  own  time, 
Judah  at  that  time  had  been  invaded  by  Pekah  and  Rezin, 
kings  of  Damascus  and  Samaria,  and  Jerusalem  itself  was 
threatened  with  a  siege,  Isaiah  predicted  the  overthrow  of 
these  two  kings,  but  Ahaz,  king  of  Judah,  doubted  his  word. 
The  Prophet,  therefore,  bade  the  skeptical  king  ask  a 
sign  of  the  Lord,  but  Ahaz,  out  of  mock  humility,  refused  to 
do  so,  and  hence  Isaiah  said,  "  The  Lord  Himself  shall  give 
you  a  sign.  Behold  a  virgin  shall  conceive,  and  bear  a  son, 
and  shall  call  his  name  Immanuel  .  .  ,  and  before  the  child 
shall  know  to  refuse  the  evil,  and  choose  the  good,  the  land 
that  thou  abhorrest  shall  be  forsaken  of  both  her  kings;  "  and 
sure  enough  this  happened  in  due  time.  The  "sign,"  there- 
fore, here  spoken  of,  consisted  not  in  the  unnatural  produc- 
tion of  a  child,  but  in  the  measuring  of  the  time  of  Judah's 
oppression  by  the  ijifancy  of  a  you  Jig  woman' s  child  najned 
Immanuel.  It  was  as  if  some  one  during  the  late  Civil  War 
had  predicted  the  defeat  of  the  Confederates,  and  his  predic- 
tion being  doubted,  he  had  said,  "  Well,  before  yon  infant — 
the  firstborn  of  its  mother,  cuts  its  teeth,  my  words  will  be 
fulfilled.  If  our  enemies  are  not  defeated  by  that  time  then 
my  prediction  will  be  proved  to  have  been  false.  That  shall 
be  a  sign  unto  you."  Isaiah's  use  of  the  word  "  Virgin,"  then, 
in  the  sense  of  "  young  woman  "  simply,  justifies  us  in  at- 
taching this  meaning  to  it  in  other  cases — especially  in  the 
case  of  the  Creed.  Of  course,  I  know  that  Isaiah's  prophecy 
was  written  in  Hebrew,  and  that  the  original  form  of  the 
creed  was  in  Greek,  and  that  the  Greek  word  "parthenos," 
was  generally  used  in  our  sense  of  the  word  "  Virgin."  But 
this  does  not  alter  the  fact  that  we  have  Scriptural  authority 
for  the  use  of  the  word  Virgin,  in  a  different  sense.  If 
Isaiah  had  spoken  Choctaw  instead  of*'  Hebrew  "  he  would 
have  meant  just  the  same,  viz.,  that  a  young  woman  would 
bear  a  son  whose  infancy  would  mark  the  limit   ofjudah's 


ECCLESIASTICAL  LIBERTY.  25 

oppression  by  her  enemies.  In  answer,  therefore,  to  the 
charge,  that  I  reject  the  Virgin  Birth  of  Jesus,  I  would  say, 
while  I  reject  the  traditional  and.  popular  interpretation  of  this 
article  of  the  Creed,  I  accept  it  in  the  sense  defined  by  Isaiah, 
whose  prophecy  is  cited  by  the  Gospel  writer  as  authority 
for  his  statement.  I  accept  Christ's  Virgin  Birth,  therefore, 
in  the  Scriptural,  though  not  in  the  traditional  and  theological 
sense  of  the  word,  and  I  accept  His  divinity  and  miraculous 
conception.  My  contention  is  that  traditional  and  popular 
theology  has  departed  from  Scripture,  not  only  in  the  use  of 
this  word  in  the  sense  spoken  of,  but  also  in  its  rejection  of 
the  human  fatherhood  of  our  Blessed  Lord. 

To  justify  this  contention  I  proceed  to  quote,  first,  some 
passages  from  two  eminent  theologians  of  good  standing  in 
this  Church  which  express  my  own  view,  and  secondly,  the 
passages  of  Scripture  showing  the  truth  of  my  claim.  The 
Rev.  H.  R.  Haweis,  M.  A.,  incumbent  of  St.  James's,  Mary- 
lebone,  London,  who,  by  the  way,  is  not  disturbed  by  the 
ecclesiastical  powers  of  the  Church — says  in  this  admirable 
work  on  "  Christ  and  Christianity,"  Vol,  i,  page  7  (Picture  of 
Jesus) — "  I  take  up  Mark  (about  A.  D.  70),  the  earliest,  and 
Matthew  (about  A.  D.  80),  and  Luke  (about  A.  D.  90),  and  I 
find  two  distinct  streams  of  tradition  about  the  birth  of  Christ. 
Mark  says  nothing  about  the  miraculous  conception  or  the 
angelic  appearances.  They  were,  it  may  be,  not  currently 
reported  in  his  day,  for  had  he  heard  of  them  he  could  not 
have  passed  them  over.  Matthew  and  Luke  came  later,  and 
embody  the  later  tradition  of  the  miraculous  conception, 
but  they  also  embody  the  earlier  view  of  Joseph s ^paternity , 
and  accordingly  give  the  genealogy  of  Joseph.  Matthew 
traces  Joseph's  lineage  to  David.  Luke  goes  up  to  Adam, 
and  plainly  says  that  the  current  opinion  was  that  Jesus  was  the 
son  of  Joseph — being,  as  was  supposed,  the  son  of  Joseph. 
From  Matthew's  and  Luke's  point  of  view  Joseph's  pedigree 
would  have  been  of  no  consequence  at  all.  The  miraculous 
conception  blots  him  out."  And  his  genealogy  should,  there- 
fore, have  been  altogether  omitted  ;  indeed,  no  reference  what- 
ever to  him  was  necessary  ;  but  these  accounts  of  his  pedigree 
are  "  merely  the  record  of  what  was  the  early  Christian  belief, 


26  ECCLESIASTICAL  LIBERTY. 

possibly  up  to  the  death  of  Mary  " — and  our  author  should 
have  added,  what  continued  to  be  the  belief  of  many  Christ- 
ians even  so  late  as  Justin  Martyr's  time,  and  long  after- 
wards. Remnants  of  this  belief  crop  out  in  Matthew  xiii.  55, 
and  John  vi.  42,  where  Jesus  is  called  the  son  of  Joseph,  the 
carpenter,  by  his  acquaintances,  who  professed  to  have  an 
intimate  knowledge  of  his  family,  and  it  is  notable  that  our 
Lord  did  not  correct  their  false  impression,  if  such  it  were, 
which  is  certainly  very  strange  if  Joseph  were  not  His  father, 
but  is  easily  understood  if  he  was.  It  should  be  noted  that  tiie 
question  raised  on  these  occasions  was  concerning  Christ's 
divine  origin  and  nature,  and  hence  an  assertion  of  his  birth, 
had  it  been  a  fact,  was  peculiarly  appropriate,  if  not  neces- 
sary. The  most  remarkable  passage,  however,  in  the  Gospels, 
is  Luke  ii.  41-48,  particularly  the  48th  verse,  which  gives  an 
account  of  Joseph  and  Mary's  visit  to  Jerusalem,  with  Jesus 
when  he  was  twelve  years  old.  It  will  be  remembered  that 
he  tarried  at  Jerusalem  awhile  after  His  parents  started  home, 
and  they  did  not  discover  this  until  they  had  gone  a  day's 
journey  from  Jerusalem.  When  they  did  discover  it  they 
immediately  returned  to  the  city  and  found  the  boy  in  the 
Temple  questioning  the  doctors.  His  mother  said  :  Son, 
why  has  thou  thus  dealt  with  us  ?  Behold,  \\\y  father  and  I 
have  sought  thee  sorrowing."  It  has  been  well  said  that 
"  Mary  was  the  only  person  who  could  know  whether  Jesus 
had  an  earthly  father,  and  she  is  not  known  to  have  opened 
her  mouth  on  the  subject  but  once,  and  then  she  called 
Joseph  his  father."  Of  course,  the  traditionalists,  interpret- 
ing this  statement  of  the  holy  mother  by  the  first  chapters  of 
Matthew  and  Luke,  have  understood  her  to  mean  that  Joseph 
was  simply  Vi\s  foster  father,  but  may  it  not  be  that  they 
have,  as  usual  put  the  cart  before  the  horse,  and  that  this  pas- 
sage gives,  with  others,  the  true  account  of  Christ's  paren- 
tage ?  At  any  rate.  His  mother's  testimony  is  clear,  and  there 
is  fiothing  in  the  context  of  the  passage  to  show  that  Mary 
7neant  foster  father  when  she  called  Joseph  our  Lord's  father. 
These  passages  in  the  Gospels  are  like  the  boulders  which 
we  discover  far  inland,  which  though  the  sea  has  left  them 
high  and  dry,  yet  indicate  that  the  sea  once  flowed  over  that 

II 


ECCLESIASTICAL  LIBERTY.  27 

part  of  the  land.     At  first  sight,  we  may  be  disposed  to  attach 
little  importance  to  these  texts.     Owing  to  our  miseducation 
in  Biblical  knowledge,  we  may  be  disposed  to   ridicule  him 
who  cites  them  as  evidence  of  a  human  fatherhood  of  Jesus, 
but  when  we  duly  consider  the  great  fact  that  the  Gospels 
were  2.  gradual  formation  fro7n  oral  tradition,  we  begin  to 
see  the  force  of  the  claim  here  made.     It  is  well  known  that 
our  Lord's  disciples  did  not  sit  down  immediately  after  his 
death  and  write  the  Gospel  accounts  of  His  life.     On  the  con- 
trary,   St.    Paul,   who   was   not   converted    for   six  or  eight 
years  after  the  crucifixion,  was  the  first  to  write  anything 
about  Christ,  and  he  did  not  write  his  epistles  for  twenty-five 
or  thirty  years  after  Christ's  death,  and  he  says  nothing  about 
the  Virgin  Birth.     The   Gospels   were   written   much   later, 
and  during  this  long  interval  all  sorts  of  stories  were  started 
about  our  Lord.     When,  therefore,  the  Gospels  were  written, 
it  is   no  wonder  that   their   authors   should   embody  some 
unhistorical  matter  in  them  and  make  a  few  mistakes.     In 
the  matter  of  the  birth,  in  particular,  they  were  peculiarly 
liable  to  err,  for  many  stories  by  that  time  had  doubtless  got 
into  circulation,  and  Mary  being  probably  dead  could  not  cor- 
rect them,  and  as  the  disciples  accepted  the  Messianic  proph- 
ecies  as   inspired    it  was    natural    that   they   should    apply 
Isaiah's  words  to  our  Lord,  and  thus  originate  the  story  of 
the  Virgin  Birth. 

Thus  we  see  how  two  accounts  of  this  great  event  got  into 
circulation,  and  we  must  be  very  careful  to  find  out  which  is 
the  correct  account.  In  view  of  the  fact  that  this  Church 
teaches  that  her  creeds  and  articles  must  be  interpreted  by 
the  Bible— in  view  of  the  fact  that  we  have  no  Pope  and 
Vatican  to  assertain  for  us  the  meaning  of  the  Bible— to 
separate  the  chaff  from  the  wheat— each  one  of  us— even  the 
obscure  country  parson— must  struggle  along  the  thorny  path 
of  Scriptural  interpretation  by  the  light  which  God  gives  him 
in  his  own  conscience  and  reason.  This  I  have  done  to  the 
best  of  my  ability,  and  if  perchance  I  have  gone  astray— this, 
sir,  is  not  the  way  to  bring  me  back  into  the  straight  and 
narrow  path  of  traditional  orthodoxy. 

I  beg  leave  to  quote,  also  the  Rev.  Dr.  Edwin  Abbott's 


28  ECCLESIASTICAL  LIBERTY. 

interpretation  of  the  article  in  the  Creed  on  Christ's  birth. 
Dr.  Abbott  is  an  eminent  clergyman  in  good  standing  in  the 
Church  of  England,  headmaster  of  the  City  of  London  schools, 
author  of  the  article  on  the  "  Gospels  "  in  the  Encyclopedia 
Britannica,  and  several  fine  theological  treatises.  On  pages 
278-9  of  his  admirable  little  work  entitled  "The  Kernel  and 
the  Husk,"  he  says:  "In  the  resurrection  of  Jesus  I  believe 
that  there  was  a  unique  vision  of  the  buried  Saviour,  apparent 
to  several  disciples  at  a  time  ;  but  in  the  conception  of  Jesus 
I  have  no  reason  for  thinking  that  there  was  anything 
unnatural  apparent  to  the  senses.  What  can  I  mean  then  by 
saying  that  Jesus  was  born  of  a  Virgin  ?  All  that  I  can  mean 
is  this  : — 

Human  generation  does  not  by  any  means  account  for  the 
birth  of  a  new  human  spirit.  So  far  as  we  are  righteous  we 
all  owe  our  righteousness  to  a  spiritual  seed  within  us.  "  We 
are  not,"  as  Philo  would  say,  "  the  result  of  generation  but  the 
work  of  the  Unbegotten."  So  far  as  we  are  righteous  we  are 
"  born  not  of  blood,  nor  of  the  will  of  the  tiesh,  nor  of  the  will 
of  man,  but  of  God."  (John  i.  13).  But  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ 
we  are  in  the  habit  of  saying  and  believing  that  he  was  uniquely, 
and  entirely  righteous  ;  and  therefore  vve  say  that  he  was 
uniquely  and  entirely  born  of  God.  In  all  human  generations 
there  must  be  some  congenital  Divine  act,  if  a  righteous  soul 
is  to  be  produced  ;  and  in  the  generation  of  Christ  there  was 
a  unique  and  congenital  act  of  the  Holy  Spirit.  That  Word 
of  God  which  in  various  degrees  inspires  every  righteous 
human  soul  (none  can  say  how  soon  in  its  existence)  did  not 
inspire  Jesus,  but  was  (to  speak  in  metaphor)  totally  present 
in  Jesus  from  the  first  so  as  to  exclude  all  imperfection  of 
humanity.  Human  unrighteousness — such  as  we  are  in  the 
habit  of  attributing  to  human  generation — there  was  in  this 
case,  none.  Therefore  we  say  that  the  generation  of  Jesus 
was  not  human  but  Divine. 

Mr.  Haweis  is  even  clearer  on  this  difficult  question  than 
Dr.  Abbott  is.  He  says — "  You  ask  me  whether  all  God  was 
in  Jesus.  I  say,  No  ;  Jesus  says,  No.  Sides  of  the  Almighty, 
of  the  invisible,  the  eternal — aspects  inconceivable  to  man — 
never  could  be  revealed  through  man's  nature.     God  overlaps 


ECCLESIASTICAL  LIBERTY.  29 

Jesus,  'My  Father,*  he  says,  '  is  greater  than  I.'  You  ask  me 
of  Torbay  or  Barmouth  Creek  whether  it  is  the  sea  ?  I  say, 
yes.  You  ask  if  it  is  the  whole  of  the  sea  ?  I  say,  no.  Yet 
a  cupful  or  a  pailful,  and  every  part  of  the  bay  or  creek,  is 
true  sea — the  sea  having  its  own  mighty  range  and  infinite 
potencies,  has  verily  and  iViA^^^  flowed  into  that  earth-bound 
creek.  All  that  is  in  Torbay  is  sea,  but  all  the  sea  is  not  in 
Torbay  ;  so  all  that  is  in  Jesus  is  God,  but  all  God  is  not  in 
Jesus."  And  then  lest  he  be  understood  to  say  that  this  in- 
flux of  Deity  into  humanity  was  merely  a  "natural  "  event,  he 
adds  in  another  place  :  "To  me  all  spiritual  inhabitation, 
however  accomplished,  is  in  the  highest  degree  mystic  and 
miraculous."  So  that  both  Dr.  Abbott  and  Mr.  Haweis,  while 
not  accepting  the  common  view  of  Christ's  birth,  believe  in  His 
divinity  and  miraculous  conception — hold  that  His  perfect 
Spirit  was  infused  into  a  human  body  by  a  special  operation 
of  the  Divine  Will.  In  a  chapter  on  "  Ministerial  Tests  "  Dr. 
Abbott  says ,  "  The  advice  which  I  have  given  to  myself,  I 
should  also  be  inclined  to  give  to  others  who  are  already  min- 
isters in  the  Church  of  England,  and  who  have  scruples  of 
conscience  in  consequence  of  some  divergence  from  orthodox 
views.  It  is  this  :  Stay  where  you  are  as  long  as  you  feel 
that  you  can  sincerely  worship  Christ  as  the  eternal  Son  of 
God  ;  and  as  long  as  you  can  preach  a  Gospel  of  faith  and 
strength,  not  only  from  the  pulpit  but  by  the  bedside  of  the 
dying.  If  you  can  do  this,  you  may  stay,  though  you  are  ob- 
liged to  interpret  metaphorically  some  expressions  of  the 
Creed." 

Such  then,  sir,  is  what  I  have  to  say  in  reply  to  the  charge 
that  I  reject  the  Virgin  Birth  of  Jesus. 


30  ECCLESIASTICAL  LIBERTW 


SECOND   DAY'S   PROCEEDINGS. 

Morning  Session. 
The  proceedings  were  opened  by  prayer  by  Rev.  Putnam. 
THE  PRESIDENT  :     We  will  now  proceed  with  the  case. 

Rev.  Howard  MacQueary  :  Mr.  Chairman  and  Gen- 
tlemen of  the  Ecclesiastical  Court.  Before  resuming  my  ar- 
gument where  I  left  off  yesterday  it  may  be  well  to  briefly 
summarize  the  points  made.  First,  I  showed  that  the  ordina- 
tion vows  and  Articles  of  Religion  teach  that  the  Creed  of 
this  Church  must  be  interpreted  by  the  Scriptures.  Second, 
that  this  must  be  done  primarily  by  individuals  who  may 
ultimately  avail  themselves  of  Conventions  to  bring  their 
interpretations  into  general  use  in  the  Church. 

But  an  individual  is  no  more  debarred  from  exercising  his 
private  judgment  by  the  formulas  of  this  Church  and  sug- 
gesting alterations  in  their  substance  or  interpretation  than 
is  a  member  of  Congress  from  offering  amendments  to,  or 
different  constructions  of,  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States,  unless  indeed  the  clergyman  can  furnish  no  Scriptural 
authority  for  his  suggestions. 

Third.  This  Church  rejects  the  infallibility  of  the  first 
General  Councils  and  the  majority,  but  even  if  she  accepted 
them  she  could  not  condemn  me,  since  the  early  Church,  and 
especially  the  Nicene  Council,  allowed  the  liberty  of  be- 
lief I  claim,  and  the  majority  have  not  always  believed  the 
dogmas  which  I  reject.  The  Reformers  ot  the  i6th  century 
and  the  modern  so-called  Catholics  in  our^Church  appeal  to 


ECCLESIASTICAL  LIBERTY,  3 1 

the  early  Church,  for  authority  for  these  proposed  changes  in 
the  Liturgy  and  Doctrines  of  the  Church. 

Fourth.      I  accept  the  authority   of  the    Scriptures    and 
merely  reject  their  verbal   inspiration  and  infallibility,  and 
I  am  sustained  in  so  doing  by  the  decisions  of  the  Privy  Coun-  I 
oil  of  England. 

Fifth.  I  do  not  reject  the  Incarnation  or  Divinity  of 
Christ,  but  believe  that  "in  Him  dwelt  all  the  fulness  of  the 
Godhead  bodily,"  although  this  influx  of  Deity  into  humanity 
occurred  without  violating  the  law  of  life  previously  ordained 
by  God. 

Sixth.  I  accept  the  miraculous  conception  of  Christ  ;  that 
is,  I  believe  that  His  perfect  spiritual  nature  was  specially 
begotten  by  the  Holy  Ghost,  the  Lord  and  Giver  of  Life — that 
His  human  spirit  was  infused  into  a  finite  form  by  special  act 
of  the  Divine  Spirit.  I,  therefore,  differ  from  the  traditional 
and  popular  theology  merely  in  my  interpretation  of  this 
Article  of  the  Creed  and  I  justify  my  difference,  first,  by  pas- 
sages of  Scripture  which  seem  to  me  to  indicate  a  human 
fatherhood  of  Jesus,  and,  secondly,  by  Isaiah's  use  of  the  word 
virgin  in  the  sense  of  young  woman  simply. 

We  now  come  to  the  question  of  the  resurrection.  Here 
again  my  position  has  been  greatly  misrepresented,  and  I 
must  therefore  explain  away  such  misrepresentation  in  an- 
swering the  charges  of  the  presentment.  On  pages  225-27 
of  my  book  I  explicitly  accept  the  doctrine  of  the  resurrec- 
tion as  stated  by  St.  Paul  in  First  Corinthians,  xv.,  which  is 
the  doctrine  of  this  Church  in  her  burial  service.  I  do  in- 
deed claim,  and  I  give  facts  and  reasons  to  support  the 
claim,  that  St.  Paul's  account  of  the  resurrection  was  written 
before  the  Gospel  account ;  that  it  must  be  interpreted  by 
his  vision  on  the  way  to  Damascus,  by  his  statement  that 
"there  is  a  natural  body  and  there  is  a  spiritual  body;" 
that  "  flesh  and  blood  cannot  inherit  the  kingdom  of  God," 
5ind  that  "the  body  which  is  buried  is  not  the  body  that  shall 
be  "  the  organ  of  the  soul  in  the  spiritual  world.  I  hold  that 
St.  Paul  treats  Christ's  resurrection  as  the  prototype,  "  the  first 
fruits  "  of  our  own,  and  since  he  distinctly  says  that  God  will 
give  us  different  bodies  in  or  after  death  from  those  which 


32 


ECCLESIASTICAL  LIBERTY. 


are  buried,  it  follows  log-ically  that  Christ's  resurrection 
body  was  not  that  body  which  was  crucified  and  laid  in  the 
sepulchre.  I  hold  further,  not  that  the  Gospel  accounts  are 
false,  but  that  they  are  substantially  true  ;  only  a  few  addi- 
tions seem  to  have  been  made  to  the  primitive  Pauline  account. 
I  hold  that  the  theory  of  a  spiri:tual  appearance  of  Christ 
after  death  explains  the  Gospel  narratives  themselves,  with  the 
exception  of  a  few  passages,  better  than  the  old  doctrine,  and 
that  those  excepted  passages  cannot  be  rationally  and  fairly  ex- 
plained by  the  old  view.  Nothing  has  been  said  to  refute  this 
contention  ;  only  I  have  been  denounced  and  my  opinions  have 
been  ridiculed.  But  considering  the  eminent  character  of 
many  in  our  Church  and  others  who  hold  the  same  view  it 
would  have  been  a  little  more  becoming  in  our  opponents 
had  they  restrained  their  ire  and  ridicule  and  manifested  a 
little  more  intellectual  and  spiritual  power.  The  Rev.  Mr. 
Haweis  in  the  24th  chapter  of  his  book,  "  Christ  and  Chris- 
tianity," teaches  the  same  view  of  Christ's  resurrection  that 
I  do.  Dr.  Abbott  in  his  "  Kernel  and  Husk"  accepts  the 
spiritual  resurrection  of  Jesus  and  closes  his  masterly  discus- 
sion with  these  words  :  "  You  cannot  have  forgotten  how 
St,  Paul  assumes  that  the  appearances  of  the  Saviour  to  him- 
self and  to  the  original  apostles  were  of  the  same  kind  and 
on  the  same  footing.  And  Christ,"  he  says,  "  appeared  unto 
Cephas  ;  he  appeared  unto  James  ;  he  appeared  unto  500 
brethren  and  last  of  all  he  appeared  unto  me  also.  In  the  two 
latest  Gospels  these  appearances  have  been  magnified  into  ac- 
counts that  represented  Jesus  as  possessed  of  flesh  and  bones, 
as  capable  of  eating,  as  reclining  at  a  meal,  and  as  entering 
into  long  and  familiar  discourses.  Naturally  we  ask  as  to  St. 
Paul's  the  (indisputably)  earliest  account  of  a  manifestation 
of  Christ,  what  traces  it  exhibits  of  similar  distortions  and 
exaggerations  ?  You  know  the  answer.  There  are  no  such 
traces." 

To  the  same  effect  writes  the  Rev.  Dr.  Fremantle,  Canon 
of  Canterbury  Cathedral,  England,  and  Bampton  lecturer  for 
1883,  in  an  article  which  appeared  in  the  Popular  Science 
Monthly  for  June,  1887.  "  As  to  miracles,"  he  says,  "  the  theo- 
logian of  the  future  will  probably  be  but  little  concerned  with 


ECCLESIASTICAL  LIBERTY.  33 

them.  We  have  all  learned  to  read  in  a  natural  sense  the 
account  of  the  crossing  of  the  Red  Sea,  which  even  Mr. 
Arnold,  some  years  ago  took  as  meant  to  record  a  violation 
of  physical  order.  The  strong  east  v^^ind,  the  cloud  which 
beat  in  the  face  of  the  Egyptians,  but  by  its  lightning  showed 
the  Israelites  their  way  ;  the  waters  kept  back  at  low  tide, 
by  the  east  wind,  and  walling  in  the  course  of  the  fugitives, 
but  returning  upon  their  pursuers  when  the  tide  rose  and  the 
eye  of  God  looked  forth  upon  tnem  through  the  cloud  in  the 
morning,  lose  nothing  in  majesty  or  in  providential  import- 
ance when  we  read  them  without  importing  violations  of 
the  laws  of  nature.  And  so  it  will  be  in  many  other  cases. 
While  as  to  those  which  are  notable  only  for  their  strange- 
ness, the  action  of  hyperbole  and  the  growth  of  the  wonderful 
by  tradition  will  be  always  present  to  the  mind  of  the  theo- 
logian and  will  make  him  pass  over  them  with  a  light  foot. 
We  have  no  difficulty  when  we  read  of  the  miracles  of  St. 
Barnard  or  the  prophecies  of  Savonarola,  nor  do  they  inter- 
fere with  our  estimate  of  those  great  men.  The  miracles  of 
healing  in  the  Gospels  will,  we  can  hardly  doubt,  always 
appear  as  evidence  of  a  peculiar  condition  of  human  life  in 
the  East  in  the  first  century  and  of  the  restorative  power  of 
a  great  Personality."  (In  other  words,  our  author  means  that 
they  will  be  explained  as  "  faith  cures  "  and  "  mind  cures.") 
"  Little  stress,"  he  adds,  "will  be  laid  on  the  accounts  of  the 
infancy  of  Christ,  since  they  are  mentioned  nowhere  in  the 
New  Testament  outside  the  first  chapters  of  the  first  and 
third  Gospels.  In  the  case  of  the  resurrection,  the  theologian 
who  starts  from  the  epistles  of  St.  Paul  as  the  solid  central 
ground  of  New  Testament  literature,  will  go  upon  the 
apostle's  teachings  that  not  flesh  and  blood  but  the  spiritual 
personality,  clothed  in  the  new  house  which  is  from  heaven, 
inherits  the  kingdom  of  God,  and  will  take  the  vision  by 
which  the  apostle  was  converted  as  the  type  of  all  the  mani- 
festations by  which  the  companions  of  Christ  were  assured 
that  He  was  not  lost  but  gone  before.  He  will,  with  St. 
Paul  take  the  assurance  that  Christ  was  alive  after  His 
passion,  as  the  fulfilment  of  the  general  hope  of  immortality 
>vhich  Israel  had  long  entertained." 

3 


34 


ECCLESIASTICAL  LIBERTY. 


Here  is  an  emiment  Doctor  of  Divinity  boldly  and  publicly 
proclaiming  as  radical  opinions  as  ever  entered  my  mind,  and 
yet  he  is  not  only  undisturbed  in  his  office  but  he  is  is  actually 
given  the  Canon's  stall  in  the  venerable  Cathedral  of  Canter- 
bury, and  is  put  forward  as  a  Bampton  lecturer,  the  very  object 
of  which  lectureship  is  the  defense  of  the  faith  of  this  Church. 
Surely  the  "  heretics"  are  quite  a  respectable  body  after  all. 

Rev.  Prof.  Alfred  Momerie,  who  is  Professor  of  Meta- 
physics in  King's  College,  London,  and  preaches  regularly  at 
the  Foundlings'  Hospital  and  elsewhere,  takes  the  same  view 
of  the  resurrection  that  I  do  in  his  book  on  "  The  Church 
and  the  Creed."  In  a  letter  to  me,  which  I  am  at  liberty  to 
quote,  he  says:  "The  facts  you  insist  upon  "  (in  my  book) 
"  must  be  recognized  by  the  Church  on  pain  of  perishing  ever- 
lastingly. 

"  Prof  Jowitt  some  years  ago  said,  in  a  sermon  at  West- 
minister Abbey  :  '  People  would  soon  give  up  believing  in 
miracles  as  they  had  given  up  believing  in  witchcraft.'  I  have 
not,"  he  adds,  "said  much  about  miracles  except  implicitly, 
I,  of  course,  do  not  believe  in  them  except  as  the  subjective 
fancies  of  unscientific  men." 

Since  writing  this,  I  have  got  an  interview  with  Rev.  Dr. 
Momerie,  published  in  the  Pall  Mall  Gazette,  and  although 
papers  are  not  infallible,  I  dare  say  this  report  is  correct. 

In  this  interview  Prof.  Momerie  says  :  "  The  Bible  does  not 
make  the  ghost  of  a  vestige  of  claim  to  inspiration  in  the  ortho- 
dox sense I  consider  that  '  In  Memoriam'  (by  Tennyson) 

is  in  advance  of  St.  John's  Gospel." 

The  interviewer  then  asked:  "Don't  you  believe  Christ 
rose  again  ?  " 

Dr.  Momerie  replied  :  "Certainly  not  physically.  Why,  do 
youf  Come,  I  shall  have  to  interview  you.  All  great  reli- 
gious teachers  have  had  an  immaculate  conception,  a  physical 
resurrection,  Gautama  as  well  as  Christ.  But  Christ  did  not 
rise  in  His  body.  Flesh  and  blood  cannot  inherit  the  kingdom. 
It  must  be  a  spiritual  resurrection."  And  yet  this  outspoken 
radical  clergyman  is  not  only  permitted  to  preach  in  London 
pulpits,  but  is  given  a  professorship  in  King's  College  and  his 


ECCLESIASTICAL  LIBERTY.  35 

sermons  are  published  and  recommended  to  the  faithful  by 
the  Church  Press. 

These  few  clergymen,  the  list  might  easily  be  enlarged,  rep- 
resent a  large  school  of  thought  in  the  Church  of  England 
which,  beginning  with  Frederick  Denison  Maurice,  Dean 
Stanley,  Robertson  and  others,  has  grown  in  strength  and 
numbers  and  influence  until  now  its  leading  representatives  fill 
many  of  the  most  prominent  positions  in  the  mother  Church. 
Yet  with  these  facts  staring  us  in  the  face,  and  known  to  all 
the  intelligent  world,  I  have  been  denounced  and  presented 
to  this  court  as  a  "  heretic  "  and  it  has  been  said  that  I  stand 
absolutely  alone  in  this  Church.  Nor  let  it  be  imagined  that 
the  liberal  theologians  are  confined  to  the  English  Church. 
I  speak  deliberately  and  am  prepared  to  prove  the  assertion 
when  I  say  that  they  are  as  thick  as  hops  in  the  American 
Episcopal  Church,  and  if  Churchmen  generally  do  not  know 
them,  it  is  due  to  what  our  Roman  Catholic  brethren  would 
call  "  invincible  ignorance,"  but  what  we  may  generously 
prefer  to  call  charitable  blindness  and  obtuseness.  I  ask  per- 
mission to  refer  to  one  or  two  such  clergymen  merely  by  way 
of  illustration.  The  Rev,  Dr.  Heber  Newton  is  Rector  of 
All  Souls'  Church,  New  York  City,  in  a  diocese  whose  Bishop 
showed  himself  such  a  champion  of  traditional  orthodoxy  last 
summer,  when  a  presbyter  in  Ohio,  who,  he  had  some  reason 
to  believe,  was  treading  in  Dr.  Newton's  footsteps,  was  ap- 
pointed to  speak  in  the  last  Church  Congress.  Dr.  Newton 
in  a  sermon  on  "  Robert  Elsmere,"  which  was  published  in  his 
parish  paper  and  was  widely  circulated  and  even  quoted  with- 
out disapproval  by  the  orthodox  Sta7idard  of  the  Cross  and 
the  Church,  accepts  Dr.  Keim's  view  of  Christ's  resurrec- 
tion. "  Keim,"  he  says,  "  whose  life  of  Jesus  seems  to  be  the 
best  expression  of  scientific  criticism,  concludes  that  the  story 
of  the  resurrection  was  not  a  mere  spiritual  process  in  the 
mind  of  man,  but  was  an  actual  experience  on  the  part  of  the 
disciples  of  an  influence  emanating  from  the  still  living  Jesus, 
whereby  he  made  them  realize  that  he  was  verily  alive,  a 
veritable  objective  experience.  He  thinks  that  we  may  and 
must  believe  as  they  did  that  Jesus  communicated  with  them 
from  the  spirit  sphere,  that  they  received  a  telegram  from 


^6  ECCLESIASTICAL  LIBERTY. 

heaven."  Strip  the  story  of  every  possible  accretion  of  le- 
gend (adds  Dr.  Newton  on  his  own  responsibility),  dig  down 
through  the  mass  of  conflicting  details  and  you  will  touch  the 
core  of  the  tradition,  the  appearance  of  Jesus  from  the  spirit 
sphere.  It  was  the  persuasion  in  the  minds  of  the  disciples 
that  He  had  thus  appeared  to  them  which  took  form  in  the 
story  of  the  resurrection." 

I  will  give  only  one  more  instance.  Sometime  ago  I  re- 
ceived a  letter  of  sympathy  from  a  clergyman  in  the  West, 
who  graduated  from  Kenyon  college  and  seminary,  in  which 
he  avowed  himself  an  agnostic — which  I  certainly  am  not — 
as  he  admitted.  He  said  :  "  The  disbelief  in  the  old  idea  of 
a  general  judgment  and  general  resurrection  has  had  too 
many  upholders  to  cause  much  criticism.  But  all  so-called 
miracles  must  share  the  same  fate,  and  none  is  so  marked  as 
the  Virgin  Birth  or  so  necessarily  devoid  of  proof.  The 
moment  the  dogma  of  an  infallible  revelation  falls  it  carries 
with  it  most  of  those  things  that  are  dependent  on  it  alone." 

This  clergyman  said  in  response  to  my  query  that  I  might 
use  his  name  if  I  saw  fit,  but  it  is  not  necessary.  He  is  the 
head  master  of  a  large  school  in  the  West  and  is  evidently  a 
thinker,  but  I  dare  say  he,  like  the  other  clergyman  I  quoted, 
followed  Prof.  Bancroft's  advice  and  read  Coleridge  and 
other  profound  philosophers,  such  as  Spencer,  and  at  last  finds 
himself  a  right  good  heretic.  I  might  mention  others.  Indeed 
I  might  a  tale  unfold  about  the  good  "  heretics  "  in  our  Church 
that  would  probably  make  you  tremble  for  the  fate  of  tra- 
ditional orthodoxy,  but  I  don't  want  to  shock  you  and  I  have 
cited  enough  instances  to  serve  as  representatives  of  the  large 
and  growing  school  of  liberal  theology  in  this  Church.  Some 
of  us  are,  of  course',  more  radical  than  others,  but  all,  or  none, 
deserve  condemnation  as  "heretics." 

After  what  has  been  said  it  must  be  evident  to  you  and 
the  court  that  the  great  questions  before  you  now  refer  to 
the  inspiration  and  interpretation  of  the  Bible  and  the 
interpretation  of  the  Creeds.  I  maintain,  on  the  authority 
of  the  Privy  Council  of  England,  that  this  Church  has  no 
authorized  theory  of  Scriptural  inspiration  and  no  prescribed 
method  of  interpretation.     She  says  simply  "  Holy  Scripture 


ECCLESIAS  TICAL  LIBER  TV. 


37 


containeth  all  things  necessary  to  salvation."  She  does  not 
say  that  all  that  Holy  Scripture  contains  is  inspired  and 
necessary  to  salvation.  She  does  not  say  that  every  word  in 
the  Bible  came  from  God.  She  does  not  even  say  that  those 
passages  of  Scripture  which  are  cited  in  proof  of  the  old 
doctrines  of  the  birth  and  resurrection  of  Christ  are  infallibly 
and  unequivocally  true  and  must  be  accepted  as  such  by  her 
clergy.  The  prosecutor  has  referred  to  the  epistles  and 
gospels  and  lessons  for  Christmas  Day  and  Eastertide  as 
Scriptures  bearing  the  stamp  of  this  Church's  approval  as  in- 
spired Scriptures.  But  I  beg  him  to  remember  these  sensible 
words  of  the  twentieth  Article  of  Religion,  viz.:  The  Church 
may  not  "  so  expound  one  place  of  Scripture  that  it  be  repug- 
nant to  another."  It  will  not  do  therefore  to  disconnect  certain 
texts  or  chapters  of  Scripture  from  other  passages  bearing 
on  the  same  subject  ;  but  they  must  all  be  considered.  I  know 
as  well  as  anyone  that  certain  passages  of  Scripture  assert  as 
plainly  as  possible  the  literal  Virgin  Birth  and  bodily  resur- 
rection but  there  are  other  passages  which,  considered  in  the 
light  of  what  we  know  of  the  origin  of  these  writings, 
express  another  view  of  these  events.  St.  Luke  tries  to  prove 
that  Jesus  had  flesh  and  bones  after  he  arose  from  the  dead, 
but  St.  Paul  says  that  "  the  body  that  is  sown  (buried)  is 
not  the  body  that  shall  be,  but  God  giveth  us  bodies  as 
it  shall  please  Him."  And  that  Christ  "  has  become  the 
first  fruits  of  them  that  sleep."  St.  John  says  that  the  risen 
Jesus  passed  through  closed  doors,  but  we  know  enough  of 
matter  and  the  laws  of  matter  to  say  that  a  body  of  flesh 
and  bones  capable  of  eating  fish,  honey,  etc.,  could  not 
do  this.  St.  Paul  says  :  "  There  is  a  natural  body  and  there 
is  a  spiritual  body,"  two  different  organisms  ;  that  our  resur- 
rection body  will  be  a  spiritual  organism.  Mary  called 
Joseph  Christ's  father,  and  his  intimate  acquaintances  did 
the  same,  and  many  of  the  early  Christians  believed  that 
Joseph  was  His  father.  And  so  we  are  confronted  with  two 
views  of  Christ's  birth  and  resurrection,  mutually  contradic- 
tory and  irreconcilable.  Instead  of  attempting  to  harmonize 
them  by  far-fetched  explanations  of  their  discrepancies,  we 
should  accept  the   one   offering   the   fewest   difficulties    and 


38  ECCLESIASTICAL  LIBERTY. 

explain  the  discrepant  details  as  due  to  the  gradual  forma- 
tion of  the  Gospels  from  oral  tradition.  At  any  rate,  it  won't 
do  to  cite  one  passage  of  Scripture  as  conclusive  of  a  ques- 
tion when  another  passage  contradicts  it,  for  if  so,  we  do  "  so 
expound  one  passage  of  Scripture  that  it  is  repugnant  to  an- 
other." Let  not  the  Prosecutor  attempt  to  turn  this  argument 
against  my  own  interpretation,  for  I  have  just  said  that  when 
two  passages  of  Scripture  conflict  one  must  be  given  up,  and 
that  should  be  given  up  which  offers  the  most  palpable  marks 
of  error.  In  other  words,  since  we  cannot  in  such  a  case 
accept  both  passages  as  true,  and  since  it  would  be  foolish  to 
reject  both,  it  only  remains  for  us  to  accept  the  most  prob- 
able and  credible.  I  accord  to  the  Prosecutor  the  right  to 
accept  the  passages  of  Scripture  embodying  the  old  views  of 
Christ's  birth  and  resurrection,  if  he  so  desire,  and  I  claim 
under  the  authority  of  this  Church,  the  right  to  prefer  the  pas- 
sages of  Scripture  which  support  and  suggest  my  views  of 
those  events.  It  forbids  me  to  give  contradictory  interpreta- 
tions of  Scripture,  and  since  the  said  passages  do  contradict 
one  another,  I  am  forced  by  the  Church  to  make  a  choice,  and 
I  therefore  choose  those  passages  which  seem  to  me  most 
rational,  probable,  and  credible.  This  has  always  been  the 
method  of  Scriptural  interpretation,  and  interpretations  have 
always  varied  according  to  scientific  and  historical  knowl- 
edge and  discoveries. 

When  it  was  believed  that  the  earth  was  flat  and  stationary 
and  that  the  sun  moved  around  it,  our  theological  professors 
interpreted  the  Bible  by  this  knowledge — or  rather  ignor- 
ance. When  it  was  believed  that  the  world  was  created  in 
six  days  of  twenty-four  hours  each  the  Bible  was  interpreted 
according  to  this  belief.  When  it  was  believed — and  where  it 
is  now  believed — that  man  was  made  out  of  mud  and  had 
life  and  mind  blown  into  him  through  his  nostrils,  the  Bible 
was  and  is  interpreted  according  to  this  science,  falsely  so 
called.  When  it  was  believed  that  "  the  sun  do  move  "  the 
story  of  Joshua  stopping  its  mad  career  until  he  could 
whip  Israel's  enemies  was  accepted  as  literally  true,  but  it  is 
now  interpreted  differently.  The  cures  which  our  Lord 
wrought   are  quite  generally  explained  from  our  pulpits  and 


ECCLESIASTICAL  LIBERTY.  jq 

in  theological  treatises  to  have  been  simply  faith  cures  and 
mind  cures.  Indeed  the  Bible- says  they  were.  The  literal 
resurrection  of  our  bodies  is  nowhere  believed  by  intelligent 
people.  All  apologists  make  most  energetic  efforts  to  show 
that  the  miracles  recorded  in  the  New  Testament  were  not 
violations  of  natural  law  and  order,  and  in  doing  so  they  are 
compelled  to  depart  from  the  old  method  of  interpretation, 
and  to  reject  a  few  of  the  details  of  the  stories.  And  so  I 
claim  that  I  not  only  do  not  violate  my  ordination  vows  in 
proposing  to  interpret  the  story  of  Christ's  birth  and  resurrec- 
tion as  I  do,  but  I  stand  right  in  line  with  all  modern  apolo- 
gists, some  of  whom  have  spoken  out  just  as  plainly  as  I  have, 
and  have  not  been,  and  doubtless  will  not  be,  disturbed  in 
their  office. 

But,  Mr.  Chairman,  let  us  turn  from  the  interpretation  of 
Scripture  to  the  interpretation  put  upon  certain  articles  of  the 
Creed  by  even  Bishops  in  the  Church  and  we  will  see  that  my 
proposed  interpretation  of  the  articles  on  the  birth  and  resur- 
rection of  Jesus  is  not  one  whit  more  strained  and  unnatural 
than  their  interpretation  of  other  articles.  The  Creed  says 
that  there  will  be  "  a  resurrection  of  the  body,"  and  there  can 
be  no  question  about  the  meaning  of  the  word  body  as  it 
stands  in  the  English  Creed  or  in  the  original  Greek  form  : 
it  means  exactly  what  it  seems  to  mean,  and  the  framers  of 
the  Creed  and  all  of  the  old  theologians  interpreted  this 
article  to  mean  that  there  would  be  at  the  last  day  a  resurrec- 
tion or  a  re-collection  of  the  very  particles  of  the  body  which 
is  laid  in  the  grave  and  a  re-formation  of  them  into  the  exact 
bodies  that  were  buried.  But,  as  already  stated,  no  intelligent 
theologian  believes  this  doctrine  now.  I  venture  to  think 
that  neither  the  prosecutor  nor  any  member  of  this  court,  nor 
our  respected  Bishop  himself,  believes  this  doctrine  of  the 
resurrection,  yet  it  is  the  doctrine  of  the  Creeds  if  they  are 
literally  construed.  The  eminent  Bishop  of  Carlisle,  Dr. 
Goodwin,  in  his  recent  work  on  the  "  Foundation  of  the  Creed" 
says  of  this  view  of  the  resurrection  :  "  This  view  of  the 
possibilities  of  the  future  resurrection  is  mentioned  here  be- 
cause it  is  one  which  our  present  knowledge  of  matter  and 
its  laws  renders  it  imperative  upon  all  wise  men  to  discard. 


40  ECCLESIASTICAL  LIBERTY, 

Matter  which  appertains  to  one  body  at  one  time  appertains 
to  another  body  at  another.  The  notion  of  particle  being 
joined  to  particle  so  as  to  reform  a  certain  body,  involves  an 
impossibility  because  the  same  particles  may  have  belonged 
to  a  thousand  different  bodies  and  may  be  claimed  by  one  as 
rightfully  as  by  another.  In  fact,  it  is  only  necessary  to  bring 
the  notion  into  contact  with  what  we  certainly  know  concern- 
ing material  particles  to  break  down  and  annihilate  it." 

This  is  a  thoroughly  rational  argument  and  the  rationalistic 
method  of  interpreting  the  Scriptures  and  the  Creeds,  and  had 
Dr.  Goodwin  lived  a  hundred  years  ago  and  expressed  such 
opinions  he  would  have  been  condemned  and  excommunicated 
as  a  "heretic."  But  he  really  ex-^resses  the  opinion  of  the  great 
body  of  theologians  and  intelligent  believers.  Let  us  apply 
this  method  of  interpretation  to  other  articles  of  the  Creed — 
the  articles  under  consideration.  We  know  enough  of  mat- 
ter and  the  laws  of  matter  to  say  that  it  is  impossible,  by  the 
very  definition  of  matter,  for  two  pieces  of  matter  to  occupy 
the  same  space  at  the  same  time,  and  hence  a  bodily  form 
could  not  go  through  closed,  wooden  doors,  as  Christ's  is  said 
to  have  done,  without  breaking  them  open.  If  His  body  did 
this,  then  it  was  not  a  body  but  something  else.  In  attempt- 
ing to  get  over  this  difficulty  traditionalists  really  convert  the 
physical  body  into  a  spiritual  organism,  and  so  come  around 
by  a  more  circuitous  route  to  our  view.  They  would  act 
more  rationally  and  scripturally  to  let  the  body  go  in  the  first 
place.  We  know  enough  about  embryology  and  natural  order 
to  say  that  the  virgin  birth  of  a  person  is,  if  not  impossible,  at 
least  so  i7nprobable  as  to  require  overwhelming  evidence  to 
prove  it.  We  know  enough  of  history  and  of  the  time  of 
Christ  to  say  that  no  such  evidence  is  forthcoming,  and  that 
such  stories  as  those  in  question  grew  up  around  great  per- 
sons, but  were  not  true.  I  urge,  then,  that  if  we  apply  Dr. 
Goodwin's  method  of  interpreting  the  Creed  in  its  full  mean- 
ing, you  cannot  condemn  me.  But  the  article  on  the  resur- 
rection of  the  body  is  not  the  only  article  of  the  Creed  upon 
which  anon-literal  interpretation  is  put  by  even  Bishops  in  the 
Church.  The  Creed  expresses  belief  in  "  life  everlasting,' 
and  perhaps  no  other  article  in  the  Creed  has  been  so  generally 


ECCLESIASTICAL  LIBERTY,  41 

interpreted  literally.  No  reader  of  the  Bible  or  the  Creed 
would,  unless  some  outside  influence  suggested  it,  imagine 
that  the  wicked  are  to  be  totally  destroyed  in  hell  and  the 
righteous  alone  to  enjoy  "  life  everlasting."  Yet  it  is  well 
known  that  belief  in  the  final  destruction  of  the  wicked  is 
spreading  rapidly  in  the  Church.  A  Bishop  in  an  adjoining 
diocese  told  me  not  long  ago  that  he  believed  this  doctrine. 
Prebendary  Row  of  St.  Paul's  Cathedral,  London,  strongly 
advocates  it  in  his  able  work  on  "  Future  Retribution."  A 
presbyter  formerly  of  New  York  City,  and  now  rector  of  the 
largest  Church  in  Washington  City,  believes  this  doctrine, 
and  because  of  it  lost  the  Bishopric  of  Virginia,  yet  he  was 
undisturbed  at  the  time  by  the  orthodox  Bishop  of  New  York, 
and  is  now  undisturbed  by  the  orthodox  Bishop  of  Maryland. 
These  are  mere  samples  of  a  large  and  increasing  number  of 
clergymen  who  restrict  most  unwarrantably  the  article  on 
"  life  everlasting  "  to  the  righteous.  This  article  is  applied  by 
Pearson  and  all  the  old  theologians  to  both  the  wicked  and  the 
righteous.  Indeed,  the  everlasting  punishment  of  the  wicked, 
and  therefore  their  eternal  existence,  is  still  considered  by 
many  the  orthodox  opinion,  and  in  former  years — less  so 
nowadays — was  preached  as  the  great  power  of  God  for 
saving  sinners.  In  departing,  therefore,  from  this  doctrine, 
and  in  interpreting  this  article  of  the  Creed  as  referring  only 
to  the  righteous,  theologians,  bishops  and  preachers  have  all 
departed  from  the  literal,  prima  facie  meaning  of  the  Creed. 
How,  then,  can  this  court  consistently  condemn  me  for  pre- 
ferring to  put  a  non-literal  or  metaphorical  meaning  on  other 
articles  of  the  Creed  ?  Conde^nn  us  all,  or  condemn  none,  is 
the  dictate  of  common  sense  and  common  justice  !  If  it  be 
said  that  by  such  methods  of  interpretation  the  very  essence 
of  the  Creed  may  be  sapped  and  emasculated,  I  answer:  Not 
so  ;  for  the  matters  in  dispute  are  ttot,  and  never  have  been 
considered  of  the  essence  of  faith.  The  Council  of  Nice 
evidently  did  not  so  consider  them.  All  it  required  was  be- 
lief in  the  Incarnation  of  the  Divine  Word  and  'Kxs  post  mor- 
te?n  appearance  to  His  disciples.  It  did  not  insert  the  article 
on  the  Virgin  Birth  in  the  Creed,  nor  define  the  nature  of  the 
Resurrection.     Whoever,   therefore,    accepts  the   essence   of 


4  2  ECCLESIASTICAL  LIBERTY, 

these  articles,  namely,  the  Incarnation  and  Christ's /^j-/ w^^- 
tgm  appearance  to  His  disciples,  should  be  accounted  orthodox, 
and  be  permitted  to  interpret  the  mode  of  the  Incarnation  and 
the  nature  of  the  resurrection  as  seems  to  him  most  rational 
and  Scriptural.  If  I  were  a  Materialist  or  an  Agnostic  ;  if 
I  attacked  or  rejected  the  Incarnation  or  miracles  altogether, 
then  I  could  better  understand  why  this  court  should  condemn 
me,  fori  could  not  justly  claim  that  Scripture  sanctioned  my 
views.  But  I  do  not  reject  miracles,  I  merely  understand 
them  differently  from  what  some  others  do.  I  believe  in 
prayer  for  material  blessings,  and  this  some  of  the  clergy  of 
this  diocese  do  not  believe.  I  beg  the  court,  therefore,  to 
seriously  consider  such  facts. 

It  is  said  that  my  interpretation  of  the  Creeds  is  not  an  honest 
one.  After  all  I  have  said,  after  having  shown  that  this 
Church  requires  her  clergy  to  interpret  the  Creeds  by  the 
Scriptures,  and  both  by  facts  and  reasons,  this  assertion  ap- 
pears false.  But  I  will  quote  as  a  further  answer  to  it  the 
forcible  words  of  Rev.  Mr.  Haweis.  He  says  truly:  "Every 
living  party  in  the  Church  has  been  charged  with  dishonesty 
just  so  long  as  it  was  a  reforming-  party.  The  Low  Church 
were  called  dishonest  because  they  leaned  to  Nonconformity 
and  its  irregular  ways  ;  but  the  Low  Church  got  itself 
accepted,  and  has  long  since  been  dubbed  orthodox.  Indeed, 
Lord  Palmerston,  under  Lord  Shaftesbury's  dictation,  would 
have  none  but  Low  Church  Bishops. 

The  High  Church  was  called  dishonest  because  it  leaned 
towards  Rome,  but  that,  too,  got  itself  accepted,  and  now  it 
is  better  to  be  rather  High  Church  than  otherwise  (whether 
Gladstone  or  Salisbury  be  in  power)  if  you  want  to  be  a 
bishop  ;  and  so  the  Broad  Church,  who  are  the  latest  re- 
formers, are  naturally  denounced  as  dishonest  because  they 
want  to  remould  the  doctrine  and  the  ritual  of  the  Church 
into  accord  with  nineteenth-century  thought  and  feeling. 

When  people  attack  the  Broad  Church  with — "  Do  you 
believe  the  doctrines  of  the  Church  ?  Do  you  approve  of  the 
formularies  of  the  Church  ?  "  it  is  sufficient  answer  to  say  : — 
The  Church  of  England  doctrine  is  believed,  and  the  Church 
liturgy  is  used  and  preached  in  the  High  and  Low  Churches, 


ECCLESIASTICAL  LIBERTY,  43 

but  it  does  not  sound  quite  the  same  in  both,  and  it  certainly 
does  not  look  at  all  the  same  ;  why  expect  more  from  the 
Broad  Church  ?  We  believe  and  preach  the  doctrines  and 
we  use  the  forms  in  our  way,  they  in  theirs  ;  condemn  us  all, 
or  acquit  us  all,  we  are  all  guilty,  or  we  are  all  innocent. 

The  Low  Churches  had  at  one  time  such  a  contempt  for 
ecclesiastical  forms  that  they  could  hardly  abide  the  bishops,  or 
bear  the  trammels  of  the  liturgy  at  all.  Wesley  arrogated 
to  himself  Episcopal  functions  ;  and  the  Lady  Huntingdon 
connection  fairly  stept  across  the  border ;  yet  Lady  Hunting- 
don's first  chaplain  and  trustee.  Dr.  Thomas  Haweis,  lived 
and  died  Rector  of  Aldwinkle  in  the  Church  of  England. 

The  High  Church  openly  detest  the  word  Protestant,  and 
denounce  the  Reformation  as  a  curse.  Their  doctrine  of  the 
Real  Presence  in  the  Sacrament  is  closely  akin  to  the  gross 
materialism  of  the  Mass,  but  the  High  Church  have  stood 
their  ground  as  honest  men  for  a'  that. 

The  Broad  Church  call  for  Re-statement.  They  are  for 
dropping  what  is  obsolete,  but  not  all  at  once.  They  would 
go  on  printing  the  Prayer  Book  with  altertiative  forms  and 
additions.  They  are  for  recovering  and  re-setting  the  essen- 
tial truth  which  lies  at  the  bottom  of  every  dogma,  correlating 
the  new  knowledge  with  current  religious  thought,  and  re- 
adapting  the  Church  functions  to  the  needs  and  the  intellec- 
tual, social,  and  aesthetic  instincts  of  the  age  ;  and  the  Broad 
Church  presume  to  call  themselves  honest  men  for  a'  that. 

You  don't  call  your  M.P.'s,  Mr.  John  Morley  or  Mr. 
Bryce,  dishonest,  because  they  admire  Republican  opinions, 
and  yet  take  the  oath  of  allegiance  to  Her  Majesty.  People 
have  almost  left  off  calling  Parnell  dishonest  because  he,  like 
many  others,  continues  to  be  an  M.  P.  and  a  Home  Ruler  as 
well. 

Our  judges  are  not  thought  dishonest  because  they  take 
the  oaths,  and  are  content  to  preside  over  a  mass  of  laws, 
some  obsolete,  some  contradictory,  some  sorely  in  need  of 
re-statement,  and  not  a  few  which  call  for  interpretation  in 
strained  and  non-natural  senses.  But  what  are  the  difficulties 
of  the  British  Constitution,  and  what  is  the  confused  and 
heterogeneous  mass  of  the  English  law —  what  is  the  mixed 


44  ECCLESIASTICAL  LIBERTY. 

position  of  the  M.  P.  or  the  judge  compared  to  the  confusion, 
the  jumble  of  things  old  and  new  in  religion,  with  which  the 
clergyman  of  the  Church  of  England  has  got  to  deal  ?  And 
what  should  he  do  under  the  circumstances  ?  Why  should 
his  principle  be  other  than  that  which  governs  judge  or 
M.  P.  ? 

To  the  same  effect  writes  the  New  York  Press  for  Dec. 
14th,  1890,  in  reference  to  this  trial  :  "  A  man,"  it  says,  "  who 
belongs  to  a  certain  denomination,  who  loves  it  with  that  fer- 
vor with  which  organized  religion,  like  strong  political  par- 
tisanship, often  inspires  its  votaries,  has  a  certain  right  to  say 
'  I  will  not  go  out.  I  will  stay  in,  and  you  can't  put  me  out 
for  anything  short  of  treason  to  a  vital  principle.  This  is  my 
religious  home  and  country,  and  you  cannot  evict  me  or 
banish  me.  It  is  my  right,  under  the  conditions  of  human 
fallibility,  to  appeal  to  reason,  and  to  agitate  for  a  change 
for  the  better  or  for  what  I  think  is  for  the  better." 

"  This  is  the  position  taken  by  the  revisionists  in  the  great 
Presbyterian  Church,  about  its  Confession  of  Faith.  It  is 
that  taken  by  the  Rev.  Howard  MacQueary  in  the  Episcopal 
Church.  We  believe  that  sooner  or  later  all  religious  denom- 
inations that  do  not  claim  that  they  are  the  only  and  eternal 
repositories  of  infallible  truth  must  recognize  its  honesty 
and  justice.  Certamly  the  clergyman  who  takes  it  can  no 
longer  be  pushed  aside  with  a  wave  of  the  hand  and  con- 
demned as  a  violator  of  his  ordination  vows,  because  he  re- 
fuses to  conform  to  teachings  that  the  world's  experience  of 
practical  Christianity  shows  to  be  not  indispensable  to  the 
fruits  by  which  alone  we  know  the  truth." 

The  most  remarkable  article,  however,  on  this  case,  is  one 
which  appeared  in  the  New  York  Churchman  for  November 
1 5th,  1890.  I  wish  to  cite  it  as  a  witness  to  my  essential  ortho- 
doxy, partly  because  this  paper  has  been  so  severe  in  its  criti- 
cisms of  my  position,  and  partly  because  it  suggests  facts 
which  this  court  should  seriously  consider  in  forming  its  judg- 
ment in  this  important  case.  Says  the  Churchj?ian  :  "  We 
sincerely  regret  to  learn  that  the  presentment  in  the  case  of 
the  Rev.   Howard    MacQueary  has   been  allowed,  and  that 


ECCLESIASTICAL  LIBERTY.  45 

within  a  few  weeks  that  gentleman  will  be  put  on  trial  for 
error  in  doctrine. 

"  The  pity  of  the  thing  is  that  Mr.  MacQueary,  probably  from 
lack  of  knowledge,  is  much  nearer  the  truth  than  his  wild 
words  have  made  him  seem  to  be.  On  the  subject  of 
the  resurrection  he  strenuously  affirms  his  conviction  of  its 
spiritual  reality.  But  for  one  dreadful  and  intolerable  phrase, 
which  Mr.  MacQueary  does  not  perceive  to  be  contradictory 
of  his  own  theory,  what  he  says  of  the  resurrection  in  general 
might  be  fairly  reconciled  with  the  doctrine  of  St.  Paul  in  i 
Cor.  XV.,  and  more  than  justified  by  the  express  language  of 
the  catechism  of  the  Council  of  Trent,"  (Think  of  it;  I'm  a 
pretty  good  Romanist  according  to  the  Churchman  !)  "  In 
this  matter,  therefore,  Mr.  MacQueary  asserts  essential  truth  ; 
and  the  intolerable  error  which  he  asserts  along  with  it  is  not 
only  contrary  to  his  own  theory  and  to  the  faith  of  universal 
Christendom  ;  it  relates  to  a  matter  of  which  Mr.  MacQueary 
knows  absolutely  nothing,  and  of  which  it  was  both  needless 
and  presumptuous  in  him  to  speak. 

"  Much  the  same  may  be  said  of  his  doctrine  of  the  birth  of 
Christ.  He  maintains  the  Incarnation  to  have  been — as  an 
Incarnation  must  be — a  miracle.  The  nature  of  that  miracle 
he  does  not  attempt  to  tell  ;  but  he  presumptuously  tells 
what,  in  his  judgment,  it  cannot  possibly  have  been.  (I  say 
nothing  of  the  kind.)  Here,  as  in  the  other  matter,  Mr.  Mac- 
Queary affirms  essential  truth,  and  with  it  an  intolerable 
error  contradictory  of  the  faith  of  universal  Christendom, 
"  Poor  Nice  !  ")  on  a  matter  of  which  Mr.  MacQueary  can 
have  no  special  knowledge. 

"  Modesty  alone  ought  to  have  kept  Mr.  MacQueary  from  his 
gratuitously  shocking  assertion  concerning  the  Crucified 
Body  of  our  Lord.  Modesty  alone  ought  to  have  kept  him 
from  declaring  that,  because  he  could  not  understand  a  Virgin 
Birth,  therefore  the  miracle  of  the  Incarnation  cannot  have 
been  that  of  a  Virgin  Birth.  So  has  it  been  in  every  succes- 
sive denial  of  the  faith.  The  beginning  is  a  presumptuous 
love  of  singularity  ;  the  end  is  heresy  and  schism." 

1  he  spirit  of  this  article  is  unworthy  of  notice.  It  is  charac- 
teristic of  a  large  class  of  writers  who  think  that  any  one 


46  ECCLESIASTICAL  LIBERTY. 

who  differs  from  them  must  be  a  fool  or  a  lover  of  notoriety 
and  sensationalism.  They  cannot  imagine  such  a  one's 
being  influenced  by  earnest  convictions  and  a  deep  sense  of 
duty.  But  passing  over  the  contemptible  slurs  on  my  knowl- 
edge and  motives,  I  wish  to  call  the  earnest  attention  of  the 
court  to  these  facts  : 

First.  Even  according  to  the  strictly  orthodox  Chureh- 
maft  there  is  much  truth  in  my  opinions,  and  hence  in  form- 
ing your  judgment  you  must  carefully  distinguish  the  truth 
from  the  error,  else  this  Church  will  place  itself  in  the  unenvi- 
able position  of  condemning  the  truth  as  well  as  error. 

Second.  When  you  have  sifted  out  the  error  from  the 
truth,  you  will  find  that  it  is  so  small  a  particle  that  the 
Church  ought  to  hesitate  to  condemn  a  man  for  holding  this 
atom  of  error.  She  cannot  afford  to  condemn  her  clergy  for 
so  small  an  offense,  for  while  some  hold  this  alleged  error, 
others,  as  has  been  shown,  hold  opinions  which,  strictly 
measured  by  the  letter  of  the  formulas,  are  equally  erroneous. 
Even  the  Evangelicals  themselves  will  be  brought  under  your 
ban  if  you  attempt  to  enforce  the  letter  of  the  Prayer  Book's 
teaching.  They  constantly  violate  the  rubrics  and  letter  of 
the  formulas.  But  because  they  accept  the  essence  of  the 
Church's  faith  you  let  them  remain  in  the  church,  and  you 
act  wisely  and  well,  for  otherwise  you  would  do  nothing  but 
hold  heresy  trials  till  Gabriel  blow  his  trumpet. 

Third.  Remember  that  the  article  on  the  Virgin  Birth  is 
pratically  a  dead  letter  in  our  Church.  We  repeat  it  during 
service,  but  we  never  appeal  to  it  even  in  a  sermon  on  purity. 
Now,  we  could  understand  why  the  Roman  Church  should 
insist  on  a  belief  in  a  literal  interpretation  of  this  article,  for 
the  doctrine  has  many  practical  bearings  and  consequences  in 
that  Church,  but  in  Protestant  Churches  it  is  absolutely  a 
dead  letter. 

I  ask  you,  therefore,  can  this  Church  afford  to  condemn  one 
of  its  clergy  for  questioning  an  article  of  the  Creed  which 
does  not  touch  the  essence  of  the  Creed,  which  has  no  practical 
importance,  which  was  not  insisted  upon  by  the  Nicene 
Council,  which  is  accepted  by  the  accused  clergyjnen  hi  as 
true   a  sense  as   the  articles   on  life   everlasting  ajid  the 


ECCLESIASTICAL  LIBERTY.  47 

resurrection  of  the  body,  are  accepted  by  even  Bishops,  and 
which  lacks  the  support  of  science  and  Scripture?  Surely 
you  cannot  ignore  all  these  facts,  and  in  deference  to  popular 
prejudice  and  clamor  condemn  a  man  who,  whatever  may  be 
his  intellectual  defects,  is  at  least  honest  and  is  honestly 
seeking  to  learn  the  truth  as  it  is  in  Jesus,  and  to  lead  his 
fellow  men  into  that  truth,  and  fashion  his  life  and  their  lives 
as  nearly  as  possible  after  the  Master's  example. 

But  if  all  that  I  have  said  had  little  or  no  force  in  it  there 
is  another  fact  which  I  wish  to  appeal  to,  in  conclusion,  and 
which,  it  seems  to  me,  cannot  be  too  carefully  considered  by 
this  court,  and  that  is  the  fact  that  we  live  in  a  transitional 
period.  Many  old  things  and  old  l)eliefs  are  passing  away 
or  being  changed.  Theology  is  in  a  tremendous  state  of  flux 
and  ferment,  and  this  Church  should,  therefore,  be  very  care- 
ful about  putting  itself  on  record  as  bound  by  the  letter  of 
any  formula,  or  opposed  to  any  opinion  that  does  not  touch 
the  very  heart  and  core  of  Christianity.  Whether  the  views 
I  advocate  are  true  or  not,  they  are  rapidly  spreading  among 
all  thinking  people,  and  ere  the  twentieth  century  dawns  they 
will  be  all  but  universally  accepted.  They  are  spreading 
among  both  the  clergy  and  the  laity.  Hear  what  the  Church- 
man said  on  Oct.  4,  1890,  about  the  general  acceptance  of  the 
evolution  theory  by  the  clergy  :  "  Whether  we  like  it  or  not, 
the  world  at  large  has  come  to  think  and  habitually  express 
itself  in  the  terms  of  evolution.  It  is  a  fact  which  cannot  be 
denied  or  ignored  that  that  part  of  mankind  which  thinks  for 
itself  and  for  all  the  rest  has  unequivocally  accepted  the 
hypothesis  of  evolution  as  the  only  conceivable  theory  of  the 
becoming  of  the  universe.  It  cannot  be  said  that -Christian 
theologians  of  any  church  or  of  any  school  have  been  in  haste 
to  accept  the  evolution  theory.  Indeed  the  caution,  the 
reluctance,  the  almost  painful  aversion  with  which  they  have 
regarded  it  goes  far  to  emphasize  the  fact  that  bit  by  bit  it 
has  at  length  made  its  way  into  many  minv.s  of  unfaltering 
Christian  faith.  Instances  and  illustrations  of  this  observa- 
tion present  themselves  continually."  But  not  only  has  this 
theory  of  evolution  been  generally  accepted  by  theologians, 
the  results  of  Biblical  Criticism  have  also  been  accepted.     I 


48  ECCLESIASTICAL  LIBERTY. 

need  only  cite  two  remarkable  papers  read  before  the  recent 
Church  Congress  in  Philadelphia  by  two  eminent  theological 
professors  of  this  church.  Those  able  and  earnest  minded 
men  told  the  Church  that,  whatever  imperfections  might 
appear  in  the  productions  of  particular  critics,  however  much 
they  might  differ  on  minor  points,  they  had  completely 
exploded  many  of  the  old  ideas  of  the  inspiration,  authority 
and  authorship  of  the  Bible,  and  henceforth  that  Sacred  Book 
must  be  considered  very  differently  from  what  it  has  been. 
They  told  us  that  Biblical  Criticism  had  come  to  stay  and  its 
substantial  results  must  be  accepted.  These  icleas  are  in  the 
very  air  we  breathe.  It  is  impossible  to  resist  them.  You 
may  condemn  me  but  you  will  not  either  silence  me  or  stop 
the  spread  of  the  opinions  I  advocate.  Far  abler  men  than  I 
am — perfect  intellectual  Goliaths— are  waging  the  warfare  of 
spiritual  enlightenment  and  ecclesiastical  freedom.  All  the 
leading  educational  institutions  oi  the  land  are  teaching 
these  views.  Yale  and  Cornell  I  niversities  have  recently 
established  claims  in  Comparative  Religion  and  no  other 
branch  of  study  has  done  so  much  to  broaden  men's  ideas  of 
religion  and  to  explode  traditional  opinions  as  this  study  has. 
Other  institutions  will  follow  the  example  of  Yale  and  Cornell, 
and  so  the  rising  generation  of  young  men  and  women,  who 
will  furnish  intellectual  and  religious  teachers  to  the  next, 
will  be  thoroughly  imbued  with  scientific  ideas,  and  the 
inevitable  result  will  be  the  rejection  of  many  opinions  which 
we  consider  everlasting.  The  Episcopal  Church  claims  to  be 
a  leader  of  thought.  Let  her,  then,  prove  herself  to  be  this. 
She  claims  to  be  liberal.  She  claims  to  follow  the  example 
of  the  primitive  Church.  Let  her  fulfill  this  claim.  She 
claims  to  have  been  founded  by  Christ  and  his  apostles.  Let 
her  manifest  the  spirit  of  the  Master  and  she  will  not  con- 
demn me,  for  you  remember  that  He  rebuked  His  disciples 
because  they  forbade  one  to  cast  out  devils  because  he  did 
not  follow  with  fiem,  and  do  it  as  they  thought  he  ought  to  do 
it.  Let  the  Church  which  claims  its  origin  from  Jesus  imitate 
that  spirit,  and  she  will  not  only  not  condemn  a  man  for  re- 
jecting a  dogma  which  He  nev^r  authorized,  but  she  will 


ECCLESIASTICAL  LIBERTY 


49 


greatly  increase  her  influence  over  men  and  draw  them  to 
the  Master. 

The  spirit  of  the  age  is  opposed  to  condemnation  for  opin- 
ions, Said  The  Christian  Union  in  a  recent  editorial  on 
this  trial:  "We  regret  very  much  that  any  such  trial  is  to 
take  place.  This  is  an  atttiqiiated  method  of  arriving  at  the 
truth,  unfitted  for  our  age.  A  far  better  method,  and  one 
more  in  consonance  with  the  method  of  the  New  Testament, 
would  be  to  leave  Mr.  MacQueary  and  his  views  to  the  test  of 
time  in  a  free  field — "  and  yet  this  paper  criticised  my  book 
most  unsparingly  and  rejected  much    of  its  teachings. 

Said  the  New  York  Times  last  summer:  "The  ecclesias- 
tical authorities  of  Ohio  would  cut  a  sorry  figure  before  the 
religious  public  in  trying  to  convict  Mr.  MacQueary  of  hav- 
ing denied  in  his  book  the  faith  to  which  he  pledged  himself 
at  his  ordination.  It  would  be  just  as  reasonable  for  the 
English  Church  to  accuse  the  Bishop  of  Ripon  of  heresy  be- 
cause he  has  granted,  in  his  "  Permanent  Elements  of  Re- 
ligion "  that  the  strength  of  modern  apologetics  lies  in  the 
ethical  rather  than  in  the  historical  conception  of  Christianity. 
Mr.  MacQueary 's  book  is  simply  a  pioneer  volume  in  a  field 
where  theologians  are  just  beginning  to  make  adventures. 
The  late  Canon  Aubrey  S.  Moore,  has  been  strongly  com- 
mended in  England  for  doing  almost  precisely  what  Mr. 
MacQueary  has  done.  To  attempt  to  crush  Mr.  MacQueary 
by  throwing  him  under  the  wheels  of  the  ecclesiastical  Jugger- 
naut would  be  to  make  a  martyr  of  one  (a  very  poor  martyr, 
Mr.  Chairman,)  who  is  not  an  exception  among  many  of  his 
brethren  in  point  of  belief,  but  has  simply  said  in  his  book 
what  others  are  saying  and  holding  as  practical  beliefs.  It  is 
to  be  hoped  that  Mr.  MacQueary  may  be  treated  as  one  among 
the  many  searchers  after  truth  who, though  questioning  old 
dogmas,  are  not  opposing  them  with  the  desire  to  destroy  the 
faith  but  to  make  Christianity  concordant  with  the  dictates 
of  plam  common  sense.  The  Rev.  Dr.  Heber  Newton  barely 
escaped  an  ecclesiastical  trial  for  holding  opinions  similar  to 
those  affirmed  by  Mr.  MacQueary,  and  the  wisdom  of  not 
bringing  him  to  trial  and  condemning  hini  has  been  abun- 
dantly justified," 


50 


E  C  CLE  SI  AS  TICAL  LIBER  TV. 


The  writer  of  this  sensible  article  is  an  Episcopal  clergy- 
man in  good  standing,  and  he  knows  whereof  he  speaks,  and 
he  expresses  the  opinion  of  scores  and  hundreds,  yes,  thou- 
sands, in  our  Church  and  in  this  country.  He  rightly  says 
that  I  am  not  opposing  old  dogmas  with  a  desire  to  destroy 
the  faith,  but  rather  with  a  view  to  make  Christianity  accord- 
ant with  nineteenth  century  thought.  The  prime  object  of 
my  writing  a  book  was  not  to  create  a  sensation  or  to  attack 
the  faith, but  to  show  that  the  substa7ice  of  the  Gospels  and 
the  Creed  could  be  accepted  in  spite  of  the  objections  and 
difficulties  skepticism  has  raised.  I  urge  and  in  this  speech 
I  trust  I  have  proved,  that  the  physical  concomitants  of  the 
miracles  of  the  birth  and  resurrection  ot  the  Saviour,  which  so 
offend  scientific  and  critical  minds,  may  be  given  up,  and 
yet  the  essence  of  the  faith  and  the  Gospels  will  be  left  un- 
touched. But  a  heresy  hunting  "  religious  press,"  so-called, 
has  passed  by  this  commendable  aim  and  has  seized  on  the 
concessions  I  made  to  a  reverent  and  conscientious  skepti- 
cism in  order  to  save  the  substance  of  the  faith  it  doubted, 
and  has  magnified  a  mole-hill  into  a  mountain  of  doubt  and 
heresy,  and  has  thus  forced  upon  the  Church  an  issue  which 
ought  not  to  have  been  raised  and  which  may  produce  untold 
difficulties — may  check  enlightened  thought  among  Christians 
and  make  hypocrites  out  of  clergymen.  I  beseech  you,  there- 
fore. Gentlemen  of  the  Court,  to  act  very  cautiously  and  con- 
siderately in  this  matter.  You  are,  I  know,  placed  in  a  seri- 
ous dilemma.  On  the  one  hand,  are  the  so-called  orthodox 
people  in  our  Church  and  others  who  will  denounce  you  if 
you  acquit  me.  On  the  other  hand  are  the  thinking,  liberal 
minded,  charitable  people  who  will  applaud  such  an  action  as 
both  wise  and  right,  and  they  will  condemn  and  denounce 
severe  measures,  if  they  be  taken.  Choose  you,  therefore, 
which  horn  of  the  dilemma  you  prefer.  If  you  prefer  to 
incur  the  disapprobation  of  the  so-called  orthodox  people, 
your  tolerance  will  be  sustained  by  the  early  Church  and 
Councils,  by  the  great  principles  of  the  Protestant  Episcopal 
Church,  by  the  enlightened  mind  and  conscience  of  the  best 
men  and  women  of  this  age  and  by  the  Master  Himself,  and 


ECCLESIASTICAL  LIBERTY.  51 

in  a  short  time  the  wisdom  of  your  action  will  be  fully 
proved. 

This,  then,  Mr.  Chairman  and  Gentlemen  of  the  Ecclesias- 
tical Court,  is  what  I  have  to  say  in  reply  to  the  charges 
brought  against  me. 

First,  I  do  not  violate  my  ordination  vows,  because  those 
vows  not  only  give  me  the  right  but  impose  upon  me  the  duty 
to  study  the  Scriptures  by  the  light  of  facts  and  reasons  and  to 
interpret  the  Creeds  and  Articles  by  the  same. 

Second,  this  Church  has  no  authorized  theory  of  Scriptural 
inspiration  or  interpretation,  but  leaves  every  man  to  adopt 
his  own  theory. 

Third,  I  do  not  reject  the  Incarnation,  Miraculous  Concep- 
tion or  Resurrection  of  Jesus,  but  simply  interpret  these 
articles  of  the  Creed  somewhat  differently  from  what  many 
others  do. 

Fourth,  my  interpretations  of  the  Creed  are  no  more  strained 
and  unnatural  than  those  universally  allowed  to  be  put  upon  it, 
particularly  on  the  articles  on  the  resurrection  of  the  body 
and  life  everlasting. 

Fifth,  my  opinions  have  been  tolerated  in  the  church  from 
the  days  of  Justin  Martyr  and  the  fathers  of  Nice  and  Chal- 
cedon  to  modern  times,  and  are  now  tolerated  in  the  English 
Church  and  American  Episcopal  Churches  in  many  cases. 

Finally,  it  is  most  unwise  in  the  Church  to  put  itself  on 
record  in  this  transition  period  as  opposed  to  any  opinion 
which  does  not  touch  the  very  core  of  Christianity,  and  I 
have  the  authority  ot  Nice  for  saying  that  my  alleged  errors 
do  not  touch  the  essence  of  the  faith. 

I  hope,  therefore,  for  the  sake  of  the  Church,  for  the  sake  of 
the  truth,  for  the  sake  of  honesty  and  freedom  among  the 
clergy,  as  well  as  for  my  own  sake,  you  will  return  a  verdict 
of  not  guilty. 


DATE  DUE 

«AJt^.-M'W» 

GAYLORD 

PRINTED  IN  U.S.A. 

